The text messaging charges post garnered quite a bit of discussion, so here is another post with two questions to clarify the discussion and keep it going:
1. If you asking whether you want to receive a message is such a good idea and then not charging if you reject, why don't the cell phone companies adopt this? Why would they still charge for the message?
2. Garrison pointed out that cell phone companies in Europe charge for more services than in the US. Why do you think that is?
Again, I urge you to think from the perspective of the cell phone company constrained by the consumers and competition.
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4 comments:
1. The cell phone companies do not adopt this policy because why would they give you the option of opting out of giving them money. (They are evil, remember.) Whether you accept or deny a message, the company still has to pay for it. So the only way an accept/deny system would work was if they hiked up the price of sending a message, and then this whole accept/deny idea would be useless anyway.
Sidenote: I have to disagree with Mr. Arjona's argument in class about corporations not being evil, and although I think selfish would be a better word, I still think they are evil because they don't do anything to help the consumer, they just do things to help themselves and their profit. Anything they do that can be construed as 'good' is really only being done for a purpose that will eventually be self-serving. Now I'm not against them or anything, I obviously plan on working for them one day, what I'm saying is that I don't think we should have this silly idea that these people are doing anything for anyone elses benifit.
2. I think that it is because the cell phone network and features in Europe are vastly better than in the US. Not only does cell phone coverage in the US suck also cell phone options and features suck.
Greg
On the first question, I would have to agree with Gregory in that "why would they give you the option of opting out of giving money?" The was it is now, the recipient does not have a choice whether or not to pay for it, and it's not like they can prevent the message from being sent. Also, I have noticed my own cell phone company sending me messages containing announcements and other such information. I'm assuming they are charging me for receiving such notifications, but I don't think it is right for them to charge me for what they send. However, I see the sending automatic messages from the company actually provides them with more money on each recieved text.
And yes, gregory, companies are evil. But that's ok, becuase eventually we will be doing the same thing to our customers when we join the malicious money-stealers we call companies.
On the second question, I'm not too familiar with the European cell phone services, but my guess would be that cells are a lot more common in the US. This higher demand would lead to more cell phone companies in the US, and thus more competition among services. This competition causes lower prices in an attempt to gain more customers.
o ya, the last anonymous person about texts was me. sorry.
-Elisabeth Bentley
I think that European cell phone companies charge more on text messages from the US because it saves minutes, and the European cell phone companies DO charge long distance. It saves a lot of money for the customer to text message overseas instead of calling them and having their phone bill increase.
Being a Verizon Wireless customer, and a dedicated text messager, I experimented with the accept or reject idea:
When you get a text message, it gives you the option to OPEN the text message. You can always not open the text message. So I checked to see how many text messages i had before I got the text message, and then i checked after i declined to open the text message, and sure engouh the company DID NOT count the text message.
BUT, the suspense of an unread text message is a KILLER, and I think someone would rather PAY THE MONEY and open it than it sit in their inbox UNREAD.
Paul Moustoukas (dedicated and professional text message user )
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