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SMS Text Messaging & Youth Debt One
securitas writes "The New York Times' Lisa W. Foderaro reports on the impact of SMS text messaging and resulting debt on America's youth. The predictable but seldom-considered effect of the recently available technology combined with the social role instant messaging and SMS play are leading to bills that youth and parents alike can't afford. 'Many high school and college students accustomed to sending unlimited instant messages on their computers do not adapt easily to text messaging's pay-per-message format, and end up with unexpectedly high bills' ranging from $300 to $800 per month. One school principal says that 'many students were blindsided by costs associated with text-messaging and other features, like customized ring tones"
Who cares ?
These people are idiots and I don't have a grain of sympathy for them. I suppose they'll soon grow up into the sort of adults who land themselves with huge unpayable credit card/loan related debts because they're simply too stupid to understand that you can't spend more than you earn.
Let them rot.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
I send quite a few and the whole thing is the biggest fucking rip-off scam. Mobile phone companies are conspiring to keep these costs up, they know full well people will pay for them. It costs your network a fraction of a penny to route a message their profit on it is way over 1000% i don't think any other industry rips you off as much as SMS, this is 2005 and people are getting used to the idea of being always connected, internet anywhere, flat-rate broadband. Phone companies havn't changed their text prices for years, they're on average asking you to pay them 10p to route less than 256 BYTES! for fucks sake miss-calling someone probably uses more network resources. Then they try and bate you with special 'deals' - oh thank you Orange 200 messages a month free? you're too kind really! Then theres roaming charages... oh jesus fucking christ if you think its bad normally, last year I went to egypt, i rang up an £80 bill in 2 weeks from mostly texting (ah women..) at 50p a fucking go. I could get high on some pretty decent shit for the sort of prices they charge and theres no alternative! I try and get whatever plan I can to give me cheap messages but they still cost the earth, its just insulting. I was wondering if there was a way to beat the system using cleaver phone software - you could use compression at both ends or send simple messages with a well timed series of missed-calls? Infact the SMS industry is partially to blame for a whole generation of kids with english problems. oh fck i cnt ft wht im tryn2sy in this stpidly smal amnt of spc i hav - etc.. trying to have any sort of conversation when one of you can't talk on the phone at that time is like trying to instant message in a 160 character text box with a faulty keyboard and bad latency, plus you get to pay for it. Seriously no other product could be so fucking CRAP and still make so much money, I long for the day when a network comes out and says fuck you to all the others and just gives you a pay-as-you-go phone and unlimited free messages - they would steal half the customer base of every other network in one week. Ahhh the whole thing just pisses me off so much, why do we pay these prices for something that costs so little - imagine all bottles of water suddenly cost £10?? ok thats not to hard to imagine :\ no imagine they're all full of tap water..
The SMS industry is asking for someone to screw it over and ruin it overnight and I would love for someone to do that, Id love for them to loose all that revenue, bloody skanky cunts.
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The last page of that article pretty much sums it up: Most americans are mediocre (at best), but think very highly of themselves.
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Pedant.
I meant they're mediocre as compared to other "first world" nations.
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The last time I checked our economy was still the envy of most of the world. At least that's what I hear from the millions of Mexicans trying to sneak in.
... escalating quickly to outright murderous use of military weaponry. Note well that that exercise involves the very WMDs which your beloved nation took such an issue with in Iraq.
... anything that doesn't involve brainless right-wing American cheerleading? No? I didn't think so.
Nice right-wing troll; too bad it takes about 3.4 seconds to puncture it.
Sure, the "economy" is a subject of envy. That's why people in a profoundly Third World nation like Mexico sneak over the border, do various menial labor for what are good wages in comparison TO A THIRD WORLD NATION'S WAGES, and send much of that money home to Mexico. Eventually, they do leave, going back to their country, having taken what they need from the only thing America really offers anyone (wages), and live their lives in a real society.
Other than the myopia of "the American economy", the American model is nothing to emulate. It requires vast amounts of bullying
Do you want to discuss the rest of what the "American economy" means now? How about enormous budget deficits? Trade deficits? How about the Dollar-denomination of oil that is starting to change in favor of Euro-denomination? Got anything to say about all that
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]