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Back before the turn of the century Popular Science did an article on digital cell phone service that predicted by around 2010 there would be unlimited minutes just like your home phone for about $50 a month. It didn't get into data usage or predict the reason for it being sms and data being the new cash cows as the reasoning, just that it would be so main stream that it'd naturally become the replacement for the home phone due to convenience. The thing I remember most about the article was they predicted AT&T would be the one to introduce it and the plethora of other carriers would fall in line. This was back before all the mega mergers when we had a boat load of carriers to choose from.
I can see where some would predict "free" service in the future but that supposedly free would be because there is 1 carrier run by the government. Some really do want a national carrier but with any government run entity comes government strings in reality. There is no free lunch.
I'd like to believe that, and just from the fact that they can gain advertising dollars by targeting us and monitoring our use it does have merit, however I highly doubt it. We are seeing more and more attention being paid to privacy with regard to how you use your phone, and yet we are also seeing more and more ways that both carriers and web content providers (read Google et Al), are utilizing cookies and other methods to track our usage and sell that information to marketing and advertising firms so it's not completely farfetched.
We have free broadcast TV but that is simply because it's (presently) one-way communication and THEY control the content. Forced advertisement is the revenue engine there. If they could come up with a forced advertisement revenue engine for cell phone communications where we would both have to listen to and/or watch advertisement, and even be forced to interact in order to assure that we're paying attention I don't see that model working.
There is one other possible model. Like supermarkets now have bonus rewards or points that can be used towards gasoline or in-store discounts, these retailers and others could issue credits (maybe Bitcoins?), as rewards for shopping at their establishments and those credits could be applied to your cellphone bill, or for that matter, in the case of a true currency based credit any bill. This I could see working.
We shall see. Remember, you saw it here first and that constitutes a patent. [emoji3]
Nobody is addressing the elephant in the room.
Are people willing to give up their average monthly price of $50 bucks a month in lieu of $120 service? It's hard to say....
Nobody is addressing the elephant in the room.
Are people willing to give up their average monthly price of $50 bucks a month in lieu of $120 service? It's hard to say....
Nobody is addressing the elephant in the room.
Are people willing to give up their average monthly price of $50 bucks a month in lieu of $120 service? It's hard to say....
Then you have the question of how many of those 150+ channels are worth watching? 5-10% maybe if you're lucky. I'd go with the 70 plan and stream my own content. Which is still 20 more than what we were paying before we cut the cord almost 2 years ago.
Then you have the question of how many of those 150+ channels are worth watching? 5-10% maybe if you're lucky. I'd go with the 70 plan and stream my own content. Which is still 20 more than what we were paying before we cut the cord almost 2 years ago.
I have 300+ channels and your right 75% are garbage IMO. But others may have interest in what I do not. Each to their own.
I don't have a choice. If I want all the HBO channels plus the limited US channels they offer I have to pay the price which is $100. a month.
If the Google deal was available here, I'm all over it.