Not too long ago I mentioned how I felt about cell phones. About three months ago we shook off the paid plan yoke and switched to pay as you go. I always thought the paid plans were expensive and unnecessary for us since we didn't make that many calls--especially me. The crotchety old dinosaur Pat accused me of being has been suspicious of cell carriers and now I find my suspicions are confirmed. You have to hand it to the carriers. They really know how to generate revenue.
2 comments:
I meant "crotchety old dinosaur" in the very best sense. You know . . . takes one to know one. ;-)
But interesting subject. Our current Verizon plan expires in a few days and we're trying to decide what, if anything, to do. They're so damn good at getting in your pocket. They're enticing me with (and I'm drooling over) mobile internet. If we bite, it's an anywhere from 45 to 100% increase in what we're currently spending for "cell services".
When I look at what we currently spend on the category that I loosely define as "communications services", (newspaper, bundled phone/internet/TV, and cell phones), it seems to be an excessive percentage of our monthly expenses. Not that I don't appreciate all that the internet does for me - we've been subscribing to high speed internet to our home since '99. But I'd rather not be paying five times what it costs to deliver those services.
Needs and wants. The technology is way cool, and there's certainly some value in staying current, but somewhere you have to draw the line.
I know exactly what you mean by drawing the line somewhere. Another contributor to the problem I have with that is that with little or no competing service providers, phone, ISP, etc., there are so few places to draw it.
Doing something like http://www.newamerica.net/files/HomesWithTails_wu_slater.pdf for Internet access would be a neat project but the start up costs are pretty high. Selling neighbors on the idea in my neighborhood would be a tough slog. I need a neighborhood of geeks.
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