WORLD'S BIGGEST RIP OFF

Text messages are stupid-expensive and your hands-free set's a joke.

By ALEX DUNBAR

Cellphones, those terrible little plastic-and-metal demons that give you cancer and ruin quiet public spaces, are an enormous rip off. This weekend when you sent that mass text to 30 of your friends, you were charged a 6,500 percent markup for the service. Testifying before US senators last summer, computer scientist Srinivasan Keshav revealed that the same text message you pay $.20 for costs your provider about $.003. Not even coffee, one of the most egregiously overpriced products on the market, can compare.

While they may suck for all the aforementioned reasons, cellphones aren’t the cause of all the world’s problems. One thing cellphones seem unable to wield their unholy influence over: car accidents. Despite all the conventional wisdom, legislation and the resulting $185 “equipment fines,” banning cellphones on the road appears to yield no change in accident rates. So why do those cellphoned drivers seem so dangerous? No one knows for sure, but it’s probably the talking part and not the phone itself. Perhaps this calls for a ban on interesting passengers? Or how about that baby crying over a soiled sack in the back seat? Let’s ban that child altogether. Or maybe one day we’ll just acknowledge that piloting a 2,000 pound object at 60 mph will never be completely safe.

By ALEX DUNBAR 2 years ago

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