We manage to do it for Graphics in laptops (like Nvidia Optimus which shifts to the dedicated GPU when required, and the intergrated one otherwise)
That is for just one app, with one bit of specialized code that runs better on the GPU. And it's to do just one thing (arithmetic that the GPU is good at). Finding what operations work most efficiently on ARM vs x86 would be a whole project in itself.
You would basically need to convince Microsoft (or whoever is the prevalent OS vendor in this fantasy) along with ALL of their partners, to switch to ARM as the primary architecture, and THEN convince them to include additional code types if their apps want to run faster than a crawl (i.e. move off the ARM chip and onto the x86 chip). It's a complete chicken and egg problem, you would need a very well built development studio to manage all the differences in a way that didn't completely cripple developers with the work needed to make their code run in two places at once, and you would need the CPU hybrid vendor to get out in front with a hardware platform that was appealing to the masses.
We have worked hard enough to get to where we are with x86 (something like 30 years now) so while I like to think long term, I believe the practicality of this idea is probably on the low side. But since we are in fantasy land, you might as well propose that a machine be built with the ability to "dock" a smartphone through some sort of hyperbus, run all apps off of the smartphone as the primary CPU and then when an app needs more resources it can add on x86 or even multi-core or ramped-clock ARM CPU resources in the docking station (like the Motorola LapDock idea, except extended greatly.) But good luck getting a standard that all handset makers can get behind, and THEN a standard that all (or a majority of) app makers can get behind, and THEN finding people to buy the whole rig.
At least Monty Python quotes required the gift of allegory in order to match them up with nerd events... With XKCD you literally respond to a post with a meme straight from "the one time that happened on XKCD" and call it a day. Even car analogies were better. I would rather have to think a little than see the same tired stick figure recounting the exact thing the slashdot thread was about.
Fuck ICEs. How much sooner will I be able to have an electric car because of all the development going into batteries because of the proliferation of portable devices?
Keep on waiting. The engineering project got shelved in favor of coding "Farmville 3: the revenge of the pigs". Big money in Apps these days, don't cha know.
The problem is that opting out of the radiation dosing machines means opting into the government authorized groping line. And if you don't like that option, you are either kicked out of the airport (if you are a politician) or arrested for not cooperating with the TSA (for everyone else).
But at least all of these TSA measures have caught tons of terrorists right. *checks the Terrorists Caught By The TSA counter* *sees it reading zero* Oh, wait... Never mind.
I don't suppose the concept of a deterrent means anything to anyone on slashdot at all (especially to the people who will inevitably down mod me). While it is absolutely our right (and imperative) to question the government and their practices, turning a blind eye to the fact that terrorists are indeed still bent on causing harm to airliners/passengers/buildings and assuming that just because we have not caught any of them red handed means that the screening is worthless is pretty foolish in its own right.
Not spending their money wisely? Almost certain. But if you want to throw in "hah they haven't caught any terrorists" you will need to finish that statement with "but they have also not allowed any terrorists on board a flight with a weapon/device that caused harm" or you will be just another disingenuous critic (also known as a liar.)
The "purposely neutering a product" is something that pretty much every CPU and Video card manufacturer does. And besides, choosing not to support something on an old phone isn't neutering it, it's just them not providing a particular feature, just like how they never brought multitasking to the original iPhone even though it was possible through jailbreaking.
As many others pointed out, silicon production techniques that result in the same part being used multiple places has been going on for about 20 years (the 486 SX/DX being the first noteworthy consumer application.) It's done so that silicon that does not pass all of the tests can still be used in a downgrade version. The odds that the test process is overly rigorous (or that production metrics warrant downgrading) are shaky, so they *might* get a card that is really fully prepared to work harder than the model spec, but it is basically playing the lottery.
1. All the manufacturers don't take advantage of this. And most of them aren't as bad as Apple.
2. This hasn't been going on for hundreds of years; the world hasn't had a global economic environment for hundreds of years. It's been going on for a few decades.
3. Improving conditions in manufacturing plants in China probably wouldn't lead to a significant increase in price. As someone else mentioned in the comments, paying Chinese workers American pay rates for their labour would increase the cost of an iPad by $70. Compared to the price of the device, one may call this significant or not. Merely making the conditions of the Chinese labourers not completely and utterly horrifying would probably only increase the cost per unit by a few bucks, at most.
You're making up shit. Knock it off.
If you think that the consumer globalization revolution (which you are right, only really took off in the 70's) was the start of exploitative working conditions, you must have skipped a LOT of history class. The OP was hyperbolic, but you are equally so. The $70 figure that everyone is throwing around really has no basis in reality (except some napkin calculation of labor time spent per piece.) There are a lot of optimizations that come from employing 250,000 electronics assembly workers, so the notion that the same process would be practical in the US is really quite absurd. Environmental protection requirements would also throw another chunk onto the price tag. If you could even pull it off, you would be lucky to get the first few million units out the door of this fictional US plant for 5x what is currently spent in China.
'Any suggestion that we don't care is patently false and offensive to us... accusations like these are contrary to our values.'
There you have it, "we care because we say we care, and therefore those workers are obviously cared for." Wow, Tim, way to keep the reality distortion field alive!
As if there isn't a market for janitors to clean up after the engineers? I would like to see ANY robot keep on working properly after trying to clean out a filthy wastebasket only to have a mix of red bull and mcmuffin puked all over it. Some things, you just need a human to do. That, and market forces will realign to create the properly priced "robo-manufactured good" such that a job that doesnt pay very well (like janitor) will be able to afford all the trappings of a good life. Or, there will just be a rebellion against the machines. It's happened before (see: the start of the industrial revolution) and it will probably happen again.
In all fairness, there is a heck of a lot more value in software than in hardware. Hardware is now a commodity, nothing more.
And in other news, this is one of the very very rare piece of wisdom to make it up the front page of slashdot in a long time. It's like there was a disturbance in the force... Did you feel it too?
The problem is that in ten years we are going to be reading a headline like "America's future is in project management, not software"... Software jobs "belong here" just like advanced manufacturing jobs "belong here". And there is such a thing as "commodity software", just look at your favorite mobile device's app regurgitation orifice if you think that there is not a market for a thousand programs that really do the same thing. Really good software (just like really good hardware) should stand out from the crowd and that is what we should be encouraging ourselves to make. There is a reason the shiny little widgety things that sell well proclaim "Designed In california, made in [a place where environmental and labor laws are favorable]". It would say "Made in the USA" if we had the guts to actually put up with the production of the things we consume so much of.
No one is arguing about keeping *every* manufacturing job here, just like they shouldn't waste their wind trying to get every software job to stay here. We should focus on encouraging us to do what we are good at.
Very confused here. I thought corporations were now people so where are their 1st amendment protections?
That thinking only applies when you are a corporate entity looking to publish negative, often completely untrue ads about politicians without revealing who you are or who gave you money... If you are looking to do something like making money off of the promotion of the availability of prescription-like substances on the international market, you bet your ass that it's not about rights any more...
Of course, people on slashdot won't bother to consider the source, they'll just pounce on the headline to 'prove' their ideological belief about Google or business.
Not a problem, we are all just pawns in Will Wright's new title, "Sim Everything". He pushed the "copycat" slider all the way up to make Zynga do that. Totally expected result, why else would the "copycat" slider be there anyway? Just watch out, if he ever takes a break from his game everyone is going to start peeing on the floor.
In what world does a platform need to control dominant (or complete) market share to be a success?
The one in which Eric Schmidt specifically said that Android would win because of dominant marketshare whether "you like it or not."
Slashdotters when Android had more marketshare at the start of 2011: "Android is taking over the world, yeehaw! Marketshare, marketshare, marketshare! Suck it, crApple!" Slashdotters when the lead is reversed by the end of 2011: "You don't need marketshare to be successful. Here are some tired anti-Apple phrases like 'walled garden' and 'iPlatform'. I willingly accept crappy hardware and software in order to feel special and unique!"
I know I am feeding the trolls but what Schmidt said had nothing to do with marketshare at all, his remark was this: "there are literally so many manufacturers who are working so hard to distribute Android phones globally, that whether you like ICS or not, and again I like it a great deal, you will want to develop for that platform"... Gee, someone wanting to make a platform that people want to develop apps for... How dare he!
Why do electoral commissions, or the local alternative, keep attempting to bring in voting systems that have been proven to be vulnerable? (Conspiracy theories aside).
Because they decided it was a good idea to replace one expensive vulnerable system with one slightly less expensive vulnerable system? I imagine it's time for a scorecard for e-voting (like the one for "fixing" spam) that starts with "It looks like you are proposing a replacement to the paper ballot. Your idea is bad for the following reasons..."
I imagine a similar fear must have sank in to the board members of the first pair of banks that decided to start electronically trading transactions with each other... "You mean someone could just like, hit a button, and the money could be *gone*?" And somehow here we are, all still alive and well despite, apparently, the ability for money to be stolen at will by anyone at any time because the worldwide banking system is almost entirely operated electronically and over the interwebs.
This election has had the largest turnout ever. 280 million people cast online votes alone. The downside is that ants now have control over the free world. I for one welcome our insect overloads.
So who won? The write-in for "Protect the queen!"?
There are 4 "nationwide" networks in the US including AT&T
All four of which have incompatible handsets, either due to differing technology, differing spectrum, or just plain lock-in.
In Europe, I could change providers by simply changing the SIM card in my phone. In the US, that THEORETICALLY works for AT&T/T-Mobile if all you want is voice (and you can find an unlocked handset), but not for data.
So no, I cannot vote with my feet. I cannot take the four iPhones on my plan to any other provider. If I could, I would have left AT&T years ago, but that is not an option.
You realize that it's possible to make the same exact argument about the price of gasoline, or milk, or houses, or whatever, right?
Gasoline and milk are commodities, traded on a commodity market. So no, you can't make the same argument. You can however make an entirely different market about why the pricing for them is nuts, but it's not the same argument.
Speaking as someone who bought a house recently, anyone buying a house right now is probably overpaying for one.:)
The only thing stopping it from being treated like a commodity is people who don't realize what their options are. You have a point that handset lock-in prevents you from being truly free to choose after you have plonked down the cash. But if you had bothered to spend about 12 seconds doing a google search, you would have learned that you can actually take your AT&T iPhones to Straight Talk (its not marketed as such but it does work) and get fully unlimited service for $45 a month.
I shouldnt have to, that is the job of my government.
I am all for the government stepping in when it's in the best interest of every one of its citizens, but in this case I am going to have to give this a "stop being SO FUCKING LAZY". Ever considered that maybe there is nothing clandestine, evil, OR illegal about the way the wireless carriers operate? Go pick out a different fucking carrier. It's your god given right as an American.
Lack of choice? Lack of choice!!!!!! (one more for good measure): !
There are 4 "nationwide" networks in the US including AT&T, at least two of them have coverage rivaling AT&T (you could easily define one of them as having superior coverage) and handset availability is very diverse among ALL the carriers. AT&T is doing nothing unique, neither is Verizon or Sprint or T-mobile or any of the other regionals who have subset networks, and neither is the MVNO market that resells access to the aforementioned "big 4" at a significant discount with significantly different contract structures.
Where is the lack of choice? If there is anything that this market is lacking, it is customers who are willing to vote with their feet (as demonstrated by the service satisfaction numbers you mentioned.) AT&T has a unique presence in LESS THAN 1% of the US market, if a customer is unhappy it is THEIR OWN FAULT that they are still with that provider. Every provider offers a grace period inside which you can back out of everything you signed (and almost everything you spent) so if you are locked into a contract you don't like it's not because there is an evil cartel out to gouge you for texting, it is BECAUSE YOU ARE LAZY.
You realize that it's possible to make the same exact argument about the price of gasoline, or milk, or houses, or whatever, right? "Well everyone pays too much for X, because ALL of the sellers are colluding!"... Except, sadly, there really is no evidence to support that.
Call me nuts, but I have a friend, who lives in a much less densely populated country than the US, but has good cell coverage anyway, and pays $4/month. And no, it isn't a 3rd world country. If it were I could explain the difference, but as it is, I can't help but think that rampant greed is a huge factor in pretty much all cell companies here in the US.
The best I can do is $35/month for unlimited text/data/calls, and coverage is limited to my state, and only half-assed at best, there..
That's because you aren't looking hard enough. Switch to a MVNO who resells a nationwide network (there are several for Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon) and you can find unlimited talk/text for around $40 a month, and it will work anywhere in the US. Higher data plans usually start in the $55/mo range. I call bullshit that your "friend" has any significant amount of talk time or data for his $4 USD/mo. Most other countries have very cheap texting and higher charges for minutes and data to offset it, and consequently texting is the preferred method of communication.
Maybe a better question is "how much does AT&T pay for that bandwidth for which they charge $20/250MB?
The issue might not be who gets the discount so much as "why is AT&T price-gouging for something for which there is so little choice?"
When you've only got a couple of choices, and AT&T actively works to keep the number choices limited, they have a privileged position. When a company is granted such privilege, they should be held to some responsibility, one of which is not to price-gouge.
"Price-gouging" is defined as "a pejorative term referring to a situation in which a seller prices goods or commodities much higher than is considered reasonable or fair". Who wants to argue that $20/250MB is "reasonable"?
reasonable adjective
2. not exceeding the limit prescribed by reason; not excessive
So what is their reason? Because a) people will clearly pay for it and b) all other providers (of which there are several) also charge similar fees. So to your question, yes it is quite easy to see this as "reasonable".
That's how they got *to* the total; they didn't show their math in any sane way but the argument was if you did 24h * 30d of 2.8gb/hr you would end up with that much in overage. Don't worry, it's stupid bullshit either way.
The max cost need to be in there, and having to pay $70000 just because you forgot to turn off your phone is not a good thing. This is important because people do not see this problem, and tend to laugh at "losers" affected by it. Pressure should be on the Telcos to have fair pricing, not on the customers.
So no it's not alarmist, it's trying to expose telcos for what they are, and hopefully change them.
If you "forget" about your phone the battery will die after about 45 minutes of this kind of usage, so, not to worry! And for what it's worth this has been going on ever since the invention of long distance; you have always been able to dig a real deep hole for yourself. Say you call your aunt in Armenia and you both forget to put the phone totally back on the hook; one month later you will have an $86,000 phone bill. Think that's changed any? You can opt to purchase more affordable plans, which is no different than in this scenario, but if you choose to be completely dumb about it yes you can find yourself owing a LOT of money. That's the price of being a grownup.
I would get a hold of your local public utilities commission if this is really happening; that's certainly not the way that estimated usage billing should work and you are right that it's bullshit that they basically charge you for 2 months of usage up front and then ride out the cash. Sounds like they either have a super shitty estimation process or they are deliberately trying to pad their books to keep the cash flowing.
Wow, I can't believe that AT&T (of all companies,) would offer customers a way to pay either a little bit for something, or a way to pay a shit ton for the same thing! Just wait until [insert some useless governing body here] gets a load of this! They will be outraged!/sarcasm
And yes I get that the $30/unlimited is no longer a choice when signing a contract, but you *can* choose the $30/3GB plan where the overage is only $10/1GB resulting in approximately $820 in overage fees, instead of $68,000.
Slashdot Mirror
We manage to do it for Graphics in laptops (like Nvidia Optimus which shifts to the dedicated GPU when required, and the intergrated one otherwise)
That is for just one app, with one bit of specialized code that runs better on the GPU. And it's to do just one thing (arithmetic that the GPU is good at). Finding what operations work most efficiently on ARM vs x86 would be a whole project in itself.
You would basically need to convince Microsoft (or whoever is the prevalent OS vendor in this fantasy) along with ALL of their partners, to switch to ARM as the primary architecture, and THEN convince them to include additional code types if their apps want to run faster than a crawl (i.e. move off the ARM chip and onto the x86 chip). It's a complete chicken and egg problem, you would need a very well built development studio to manage all the differences in a way that didn't completely cripple developers with the work needed to make their code run in two places at once, and you would need the CPU hybrid vendor to get out in front with a hardware platform that was appealing to the masses.
We have worked hard enough to get to where we are with x86 (something like 30 years now) so while I like to think long term, I believe the practicality of this idea is probably on the low side. But since we are in fantasy land, you might as well propose that a machine be built with the ability to "dock" a smartphone through some sort of hyperbus, run all apps off of the smartphone as the primary CPU and then when an app needs more resources it can add on x86 or even multi-core or ramped-clock ARM CPU resources in the docking station (like the Motorola LapDock idea, except extended greatly.) But good luck getting a standard that all handset makers can get behind, and THEN a standard that all (or a majority of) app makers can get behind, and THEN finding people to buy the whole rig.
Bitcoin jumped the shark when it, oh, nevermind let me just coin a new term: it "tv lawyer verdicted"...
http://www.avclub.com/articles/bitcoin-for-dummies,67658/
At least Monty Python quotes required the gift of allegory in order to match them up with nerd events... With XKCD you literally respond to a post with a meme straight from "the one time that happened on XKCD" and call it a day. Even car analogies were better. I would rather have to think a little than see the same tired stick figure recounting the exact thing the slashdot thread was about.
Fuck ICEs. How much sooner will I be able to have an electric car because of all the development going into batteries because of the proliferation of portable devices?
Keep on waiting. The engineering project got shelved in favor of coding "Farmville 3: the revenge of the pigs". Big money in Apps these days, don't cha know.
The problem is that opting out of the radiation dosing machines means opting into the government authorized groping line. And if you don't like that option, you are either kicked out of the airport (if you are a politician) or arrested for not cooperating with the TSA (for everyone else).
But at least all of these TSA measures have caught tons of terrorists right. *checks the Terrorists Caught By The TSA counter* *sees it reading zero* Oh, wait... Never mind.
I don't suppose the concept of a deterrent means anything to anyone on slashdot at all (especially to the people who will inevitably down mod me). While it is absolutely our right (and imperative) to question the government and their practices, turning a blind eye to the fact that terrorists are indeed still bent on causing harm to airliners/passengers/buildings and assuming that just because we have not caught any of them red handed means that the screening is worthless is pretty foolish in its own right.
Not spending their money wisely? Almost certain. But if you want to throw in "hah they haven't caught any terrorists" you will need to finish that statement with "but they have also not allowed any terrorists on board a flight with a weapon/device that caused harm" or you will be just another disingenuous critic (also known as a liar.)
The "purposely neutering a product" is something that pretty much every CPU and Video card manufacturer does. And besides, choosing not to support something on an old phone isn't neutering it, it's just them not providing a particular feature, just like how they never brought multitasking to the original iPhone even though it was possible through jailbreaking.
As many others pointed out, silicon production techniques that result in the same part being used multiple places has been going on for about 20 years (the 486 SX/DX being the first noteworthy consumer application.) It's done so that silicon that does not pass all of the tests can still be used in a downgrade version. The odds that the test process is overly rigorous (or that production metrics warrant downgrading) are shaky, so they *might* get a card that is really fully prepared to work harder than the model spec, but it is basically playing the lottery.
You're being obtusely hyperbolic.
1. All the manufacturers don't take advantage of this. And most of them aren't as bad as Apple.
2. This hasn't been going on for hundreds of years; the world hasn't had a global economic environment for hundreds of years. It's been going on for a few decades.
3. Improving conditions in manufacturing plants in China probably wouldn't lead to a significant increase in price. As someone else mentioned in the comments, paying Chinese workers American pay rates for their labour would increase the cost of an iPad by $70. Compared to the price of the device, one may call this significant or not. Merely making the conditions of the Chinese labourers not completely and utterly horrifying would probably only increase the cost per unit by a few bucks, at most.
You're making up shit. Knock it off.
If you think that the consumer globalization revolution (which you are right, only really took off in the 70's) was the start of exploitative working conditions, you must have skipped a LOT of history class. The OP was hyperbolic, but you are equally so. The $70 figure that everyone is throwing around really has no basis in reality (except some napkin calculation of labor time spent per piece.) There are a lot of optimizations that come from employing 250,000 electronics assembly workers, so the notion that the same process would be practical in the US is really quite absurd. Environmental protection requirements would also throw another chunk onto the price tag. If you could even pull it off, you would be lucky to get the first few million units out the door of this fictional US plant for 5x what is currently spent in China.
Tim Cook met the allegations head-on:
'Any suggestion that we don't care is patently false and offensive to us ... accusations like these are contrary to our values.'
There you have it, "we care because we say we care, and therefore those workers are obviously cared for." Wow, Tim, way to keep the reality distortion field alive!
As if there isn't a market for janitors to clean up after the engineers? I would like to see ANY robot keep on working properly after trying to clean out a filthy wastebasket only to have a mix of red bull and mcmuffin puked all over it. Some things, you just need a human to do. That, and market forces will realign to create the properly priced "robo-manufactured good" such that a job that doesnt pay very well (like janitor) will be able to afford all the trappings of a good life. Or, there will just be a rebellion against the machines. It's happened before (see: the start of the industrial revolution) and it will probably happen again.
In all fairness, there is a heck of a lot more value in software than in hardware. Hardware is now a commodity, nothing more.
And in other news, this is one of the very very rare piece of wisdom to make it up the front page of slashdot in a long time. It's like there was a disturbance in the force... Did you feel it too?
The problem is that in ten years we are going to be reading a headline like "America's future is in project management, not software"... Software jobs "belong here" just like advanced manufacturing jobs "belong here". And there is such a thing as "commodity software", just look at your favorite mobile device's app regurgitation orifice if you think that there is not a market for a thousand programs that really do the same thing. Really good software (just like really good hardware) should stand out from the crowd and that is what we should be encouraging ourselves to make. There is a reason the shiny little widgety things that sell well proclaim "Designed In california, made in [a place where environmental and labor laws are favorable]". It would say "Made in the USA" if we had the guts to actually put up with the production of the things we consume so much of.
No one is arguing about keeping *every* manufacturing job here, just like they shouldn't waste their wind trying to get every software job to stay here. We should focus on encouraging us to do what we are good at.
Very confused here. I thought corporations were now people so where are their 1st amendment protections?
That thinking only applies when you are a corporate entity looking to publish negative, often completely untrue ads about politicians without revealing who you are or who gave you money... If you are looking to do something like making money off of the promotion of the availability of prescription-like substances on the international market, you bet your ass that it's not about rights any more...
Of course, people on slashdot won't bother to consider the source, they'll just pounce on the headline to 'prove' their ideological belief about Google or business.
Which begs the question: Where's Bonch?
ah HAH! That's not begging the question!
When they hear about this.
Not a problem, we are all just pawns in Will Wright's new title, "Sim Everything". He pushed the "copycat" slider all the way up to make Zynga do that. Totally expected result, why else would the "copycat" slider be there anyway? Just watch out, if he ever takes a break from his game everyone is going to start peeing on the floor.
The one in which Eric Schmidt specifically said that Android would win because of dominant marketshare whether "you like it or not."
Slashdotters when Android had more marketshare at the start of 2011: "Android is taking over the world, yeehaw! Marketshare, marketshare, marketshare! Suck it, crApple!"
Slashdotters when the lead is reversed by the end of 2011: "You don't need marketshare to be successful. Here are some tired anti-Apple phrases like 'walled garden' and 'iPlatform'. I willingly accept crappy hardware and software in order to feel special and unique!"
I know I am feeding the trolls but what Schmidt said had nothing to do with marketshare at all, his remark was this: "there are literally so many manufacturers who are working so hard to distribute Android phones globally, that whether you like ICS or not, and again I like it a great deal, you will want to develop for that platform"... Gee, someone wanting to make a platform that people want to develop apps for... How dare he!
Why do electoral commissions, or the local alternative, keep attempting to bring in voting systems that have been proven to be vulnerable? (Conspiracy theories aside).
Because they decided it was a good idea to replace one expensive vulnerable system with one slightly less expensive vulnerable system? I imagine it's time for a scorecard for e-voting (like the one for "fixing" spam) that starts with "It looks like you are proposing a replacement to the paper ballot. Your idea is bad for the following reasons..."
I imagine a similar fear must have sank in to the board members of the first pair of banks that decided to start electronically trading transactions with each other... "You mean someone could just like, hit a button, and the money could be *gone*?" And somehow here we are, all still alive and well despite, apparently, the ability for money to be stolen at will by anyone at any time because the worldwide banking system is almost entirely operated electronically and over the interwebs.
This election has had the largest turnout ever. 280 million people cast online votes alone. The downside is that ants now have control over the free world. I for one welcome our insect overloads.
So who won? The write-in for "Protect the queen!"?
All four of which have incompatible handsets, either due to differing technology, differing spectrum, or just plain lock-in.
In Europe, I could change providers by simply changing the SIM card in my phone. In the US, that THEORETICALLY works for AT&T/T-Mobile if all you want is voice (and you can find an unlocked handset), but not for data.
So no, I cannot vote with my feet. I cannot take the four iPhones on my plan to any other provider. If I could, I would have left AT&T years ago, but that is not an option.
Gasoline and milk are commodities, traded on a commodity market. So no, you can't make the same argument. You can however make an entirely different market about why the pricing for them is nuts, but it's not the same argument.
Speaking as someone who bought a house recently, anyone buying a house right now is probably overpaying for one. :)
The only thing stopping it from being treated like a commodity is people who don't realize what their options are. You have a point that handset lock-in prevents you from being truly free to choose after you have plonked down the cash. But if you had bothered to spend about 12 seconds doing a google search, you would have learned that you can actually take your AT&T iPhones to Straight Talk (its not marketed as such but it does work) and get fully unlimited service for $45 a month.
I shouldnt have to, that is the job of my government.
I am all for the government stepping in when it's in the best interest of every one of its citizens, but in this case I am going to have to give this a "stop being SO FUCKING LAZY". Ever considered that maybe there is nothing clandestine, evil, OR illegal about the way the wireless carriers operate? Go pick out a different fucking carrier. It's your god given right as an American.
They pay for it because of a lack of choice.
Lack of choice? Lack of choice!!!!!! (one more for good measure): !
There are 4 "nationwide" networks in the US including AT&T, at least two of them have coverage rivaling AT&T (you could easily define one of them as having superior coverage) and handset availability is very diverse among ALL the carriers. AT&T is doing nothing unique, neither is Verizon or Sprint or T-mobile or any of the other regionals who have subset networks, and neither is the MVNO market that resells access to the aforementioned "big 4" at a significant discount with significantly different contract structures.
Where is the lack of choice? If there is anything that this market is lacking, it is customers who are willing to vote with their feet (as demonstrated by the service satisfaction numbers you mentioned.) AT&T has a unique presence in LESS THAN 1% of the US market, if a customer is unhappy it is THEIR OWN FAULT that they are still with that provider. Every provider offers a grace period inside which you can back out of everything you signed (and almost everything you spent) so if you are locked into a contract you don't like it's not because there is an evil cartel out to gouge you for texting, it is BECAUSE YOU ARE LAZY.
You realize that it's possible to make the same exact argument about the price of gasoline, or milk, or houses, or whatever, right? "Well everyone pays too much for X, because ALL of the sellers are colluding!"... Except, sadly, there really is no evidence to support that.
Call me nuts, but I have a friend, who lives in a much less densely populated country than the US, but has good cell coverage anyway, and pays $4/month. And no, it isn't a 3rd world country. If it were I could explain the difference, but as it is, I can't help but think that rampant greed is a huge factor in pretty much all cell companies here in the US.
The best I can do is $35/month for unlimited text/data/calls, and coverage is limited to my state, and only half-assed at best, there..
That's because you aren't looking hard enough. Switch to a MVNO who resells a nationwide network (there are several for Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon) and you can find unlimited talk/text for around $40 a month, and it will work anywhere in the US. Higher data plans usually start in the $55/mo range. I call bullshit that your "friend" has any significant amount of talk time or data for his $4 USD/mo. Most other countries have very cheap texting and higher charges for minutes and data to offset it, and consequently texting is the preferred method of communication.
Maybe a better question is "how much does AT&T pay for that bandwidth for which they charge $20/250MB?
The issue might not be who gets the discount so much as "why is AT&T price-gouging for something for which there is so little choice?"
When you've only got a couple of choices, and AT&T actively works to keep the number choices limited, they have a privileged position. When a company is granted such privilege, they should be held to some responsibility, one of which is not to price-gouge.
"Price-gouging" is defined as "a pejorative term referring to a situation in which a seller prices goods or commodities much higher than is considered reasonable or fair". Who wants to argue that $20/250MB is "reasonable"?
reasonable
adjective
2.
not exceeding the limit prescribed by reason; not excessive
So what is their reason? Because a) people will clearly pay for it and b) all other providers (of which there are several) also charge similar fees. So to your question, yes it is quite easy to see this as "reasonable".
That's how they got *to* the total; they didn't show their math in any sane way but the argument was if you did 24h * 30d of 2.8gb/hr you would end up with that much in overage. Don't worry, it's stupid bullshit either way.
The max cost need to be in there, and having to pay $70000 just because you forgot to turn off your phone is not a good thing. This is important because people do not see this problem, and tend to laugh at "losers" affected by it. Pressure should be on the Telcos to have fair pricing, not on the customers.
So no it's not alarmist, it's trying to expose telcos for what they are, and hopefully change them.
If you "forget" about your phone the battery will die after about 45 minutes of this kind of usage, so, not to worry! And for what it's worth this has been going on ever since the invention of long distance; you have always been able to dig a real deep hole for yourself. Say you call your aunt in Armenia and you both forget to put the phone totally back on the hook; one month later you will have an $86,000 phone bill. Think that's changed any? You can opt to purchase more affordable plans, which is no different than in this scenario, but if you choose to be completely dumb about it yes you can find yourself owing a LOT of money. That's the price of being a grownup.
I would get a hold of your local public utilities commission if this is really happening; that's certainly not the way that estimated usage billing should work and you are right that it's bullshit that they basically charge you for 2 months of usage up front and then ride out the cash. Sounds like they either have a super shitty estimation process or they are deliberately trying to pad their books to keep the cash flowing.
Wow, I can't believe that AT&T (of all companies,) would offer customers a way to pay either a little bit for something, or a way to pay a shit ton for the same thing! Just wait until [insert some useless governing body here] gets a load of this! They will be outraged! /sarcasm
And yes I get that the $30/unlimited is no longer a choice when signing a contract, but you *can* choose the $30/3GB plan where the overage is only $10/1GB resulting in approximately $820 in overage fees, instead of $68,000.