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Yeah, make them reveal how much it costs them to send each SMS that they charge is 15 cents to send and receive (unless we have a "plan").

Just remember that at 20 cents per message to send and 20 cents to receive (40 cents per message), it will cost $61,000,000 to transfer your mp3 collection over tcp/sms.

http://gthing.net/the-true-price-of-sms-messages

As mentioned in the article summary above, SMS also uses a channel that isn't used for much else other than miscellaneous call and signal strength data. It is also my impression that text messages have no guaranteed timeframe for delivery, as said miscellaneous data takes precedence. So it seems to me that since SMS takes advantage of facilities that would still exist in its absence, charging $0.20 per message (or even anything at all) is akin to a ripoff. See also: http://gthing.net/the-true-price-of-sms-messages/

This is the problem with SMS messages. they are overpriced drastically so people are looking for ways to subvert them.

Overpriced drastically?
SMS cost is $0 (dslreports.com)
Another informed slashdotter (gthing.net)

There's another article from a more reputable source (nytimes or something) that I don't have the time to dig up... but it says more of the same thing.

I ask you this:
Considering a single SMS is limited to 128 bytes and has been discussed as trivial to send, even by the cellular companies, why do I still have to pay $15 for the privilege of unlimited SMS? How is it that these companies can charge $0.10 to $0.20 per message for something that costs them nothing?

Closest analogy that comes to mind is the MAFIAA. The cost of production en masse is trivial compared to the price being charged for the production. Only difference is the MAFIAA invested millions/billions into the production and therefore need to recoup cost, while most texts are little more than brain garbage.

You had me right up until you said "more competition, cheaper prices." Sorry dude. You've got four major established players, and you'd naively think this would mean vigorous competition, but in fact there's little evidence for this idea, and more troubling, there's evidence for collusion. (Shock! Gasp! A free Market perfect information perfect competition, doesn't and can never exist in actuality? Sob! Genuflecting at the Alter of Free Markets has done nothing! Cartels exist? Cry! Suicide!)

Three arms and a leg? Try an order of magnitude higher... according to this, it would cost about $24.5M to send just the 16GB of data via text messaging.

What is really amazing is that people seem to come out in droves to defend the carriers. I wrote an article on the ridiculously high cost of text messages some time ago (which was also featured here on /. as well as several major media outlets - yes, I'm tooting my own horn) and couldn't count the people who came out and said "DUH! They're charging what they are because people are willing to pay it!"

These are the kind of assholes who troll around the web looking for any discussion in which to insert their derogatory "I'm smarter than you - it's so obvious!" attitude while ignoring the issue at hand. No, prices are not justified by the markets willingness to pay them. Do you think it is justified that a friend of mine had to go $400,000 in debt because he got brain cancer while he didn't have insurance? His family was willing to pay it, so it must be a great deal, right? Do you think that higher and higher gas prices are justified even while the price of oil drops and oil companies post record profits quarter after quarter?

No, of course those things aren't justified. Just like it wouldn't be justified if all the food manufacturers suddenly decided to charge 10x more for food. It's anti competitive and it's illegal for a very good reason. Price fixing ruins the free market and ensures that consumers get the crappiest possible product for the greatest price. It ruins innovation and takes a huge dump on everyone in the market. Several historical examples show this, but I won't get into that here. Two seconds of critical thinking will get you to the same conclusion.

Text messaging is a 100 billion dollar industry in the U.S. That's bigger than all the movies, all the music, and all the video games in the entire world put together. The current cost of a single 140 byte text message is 40 cents (which is obfuscated by the fact that the sender AND the receiver are both paying 20 cents each). I can get a letter hand delivered to any doorstep in the U.S. for about the same price. The cost of a text message to the carrier is virtually ZERO. Yet somehow, they are saying that 40 cents is a fair price. I want to know why, and I'm glad someone in congress is doing something about it.

My article on the subject is here, btw, for anyone interested or who hasn't already seen it: http://gthing.net/the-true-price-of-sms-messages

I tried three times but my computer crashed everytime...

But, if you're still curious here is a write-up about myspace, both page design and the people behind it.