NO! You must have one loaded with all kinds of add-ons like music services and social networking that we hope will cause you to buy lots of stuff and use lots of data and use your phone as an entertainment toy so that your monthly bill is more than you spend on all other entertainment put together.
Collyn managed to launder my phone the other day, and while it did fire up after drying out, it would lock up and then shut down, and then randomly start up again. Since we have both had our phones for many years and needed to change our numbers, we headed to the AT&T store. I knew from checking online that what we wanted was simply not available. I got a basic phone, which to me means it should make calls, send texts, maybe have a camera, and include some organization stuff like a calendar and alarm.
In addition to all of this I can watch video, browse the web, calculate tips, see what time it is anywhere in the world, see the city and state of an incoming call (with subscription), add music and use my phone as a player (memory card, proprietary cable and proprietary headphones not included with purchase), play games (no games included), gps, and a bunch of other stuff. Now this is all great except that it all requires additional purchases and most of them require data use, which means adding on a data plan.
We currently have a low minute plan, with a low text (200 per month) add on for each of us. They don't even offer the low text add on anymore, but for twice as much you can get 1000 per month. Data plans run $15 per month and up. I have yet to determine a reason outside of profit that justifies a $.20 charge for a text and treats it as a separate thing from data.
The entire system is geared toward high users who value convenience over money. I'm just bothered that every few years I end up paying more to do the same thing I've been doing, because the phones keep getting more involved and the carriers keep chucking the low use plans. Of course, the same thing has happened to computers as well. The laptop I have know is a far more powerful machine than I will likely ever need it to be, and it was a pretty low end model.
I feel like tech has become the modern version of jewelry. We can claim it's functional and has changed our lives but for most people, it's a shiny bauble that is flashed around. We use it not because we need to, but because we've been conditioned to want to.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Sorry, the answer to your question if NO. You are suppose to want lots of TOYS along with the ability to make a phone call.
And that is why we have stuck with our "pay as you go", not locked into any plan, great reception, phone from Wal-mart. It makes calls, texts (except we never use that feature) and if we wanted to pay more we could have gotten one that takes pictures too.
Amen! (If find that I am saying that a lot to your posts/commentaries on society. You do a good job of articulating a lot of what is wrong with our society.) We have trac phones. (But we also have a home phone because a trac phone is way too expensive per minute to be your only phone.) We can only make calls, text, and take really bad quality pictures. But that is all we need.
I think your perspective is all wrong. When I went phone shopping, the "phone" was the last thing I was interested in. Why would I want people to be able to contact me at inconvenient times? Leigh and I share 400 minutes/month. On average, we use about 30. We have something like 3,000 rollover minutes racked up.
Post a Comment