this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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Is there any reason, beyond corporate greed, for SMS messages to cost so much?

If I get it right, an SMS message is just a short string of data, no different from a message we send in a messenger. If so, then what makes them so expensive? If we'd take Internet plans and consider how much data an SMS takes, we should pay tiny fraction of a cent for each message; why doesn't that happen?

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[–] AlternatePersonMan@lemmy.world 73 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)

Messages went from $.05, to $.10, to $.20 to send and receive. That was in the span of three years. All of the companies said it wasn't collision. They just happened to arrive upon massive increases separately.

If I recall, one of the CEOs said "We're raising the prices to save customers money. This way they'll be an unlimited plan"

The telcos should have been broken up then. Instead we've seen even more mergers.

  • Edit: forgot to include the years. This was in the U.S. circa 2005-2008. Telcos have moved onto other sleezy practices now.*
[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They fucked themselves. It became more worthwhile to just use data.

[–] billiam0202@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] knexcar@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)
[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago

I'm not sure who in this chain is joking, lol

[–] dandroid@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

WiFi isn't free. And Idk about you, but where I live the internet service providers are the same as cell providers. I have AT&T for internet, for example. So they still get the money.

[–] knexcar@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

But with WiFi, you don’t have to pay extra for more data usage.

[–] dandroid@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago

That depends. Where I used to live, Comcast had a monopoly and a data cap.

[–] Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 6 months ago

I know you meant collusion, but in case anyone else didn't, it's not collision.

[–] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You had to pay to receive? wtf.gif

So some rando could ruin you by sending a bazillion SMS messages?

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You could ignore them and not recieve. But then you've got a billion pending messages that you don't know the content of.

[–] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The messages weren't pushed to you? You got a notification and then had to request the actual message? That would be even more stupid, as it's using twice the bandwidth.

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 1 points 6 months ago

That's how it worked on my old phone, you got a message notification but it cost you to actually read it. No clue if they sent the message content before the paywall or if it pulled it down afterward.

But it also meant you could use your phone basically as a beeper without paying for texts. Just see who sent you a message, ignore the actual message and call them.

[–] Maeve@kbin.social 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This was certainly in the US at one point. I remember having 500 per month, which was an absolute joke for 16 year old me with a girlfriend the next town over, and paying 25 send and 5 receive afterwards. Old cell plans were absolute trash.

[–] Maeve@kbin.social 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Jesus. I remember my first cell was $35/month, 350 minutes of talk, no data and unlimited texts, before smart phones. On contact.

[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Yeah, I remember when they started rolling out data plans and they were hefty and the Internet on phones was useless. Then GPS on your phone was an add-on, also hefty. So it's definitely improved.

[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 1 points 6 months ago

Probably trying to get the last juice to squeeze as more and more traffic moves to web based messaging