At least they require conformity to convention, and you don't get some script that the guy decided to make creative use of his whitespace. I think it really is more a feature (not to say all flaws are features)
What better alternatives? I hope that you are speaking of theoretical alternatives, because as I look around, there just aren't that many real alternatives to the Cingular/Sprint/etc rape that they call a service agreement. As has been said there is so much lock-in here that you can barley breathe on your phone and not get charged a special breathing fee. The problem is that there are extremely high barriers to entry into the market. Actually the same reason that Congress had to split up land line phone guru AT&T awhile back. Nobody could really get into the market and then compete at a reasonable price. If the infrastructure was opened up then you could have actual competition instead of the oligopoly that we have operating now. That would solve the mobile phone problem here. Seeing as I don't know the economics of the Japanese phone system, I can't make the comparison for you, but this is my 2 cents, regardless
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His answers are not content free; they are opinion free, there is a difference
At least they require conformity to convention, and you don't get some script that the guy decided to make creative use of his whitespace. I think it really is more a feature (not to say all flaws are features)
What better alternatives? I hope that you are speaking of theoretical alternatives, because as I look around, there just aren't that many real alternatives to the Cingular/Sprint/etc rape that they call a service agreement. As has been said there is so much lock-in here that you can barley breathe on your phone and not get charged a special breathing fee. The problem is that there are extremely high barriers to entry into the market. Actually the same reason that Congress had to split up land line phone guru AT&T awhile back. Nobody could really get into the market and then compete at a reasonable price. If the infrastructure was opened up then you could have actual competition instead of the oligopoly that we have operating now. That would solve the mobile phone problem here. Seeing as I don't know the economics of the Japanese phone system, I can't make the comparison for you, but this is my 2 cents, regardless