I for one, was glad to read David Goldman's CNNMoney report that the text message is dead. That means I won't have to start using them. Snarky joke aside, Goldman makes it clear that phone companies delight in the immensely profitable but low-bandwidth messaging technology and will miss it when its gone.
Texting may sound cheap, but it's actually an incredibly expensive way for consumers to send data. Text messages max out at just 160 bytes, which means 20-cents-per-message plans cost wireless customers an astounding $1,250 per megabyte.
Unlimited plans are also a rip off. If a wireless customer sent one text message every minute of every day of every month (44,640 texts per month), at "just" $20 per month, that still works out to $2.80 per megabyte.
Sadly, the reason text message are being delivered into the cold, cold ground is just that app developers have figured out a way to make them free - so they aren't really going away as a means of communication, just as a means of extracting ridiculously high fees from cell phone users.
Goldman once again does the math around consumer data delivery much as he does breaking down cell phone contracts and cable television packages, providing consumer-friendly information that also speaks to larger business trends.
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