Originally Posted by
callum9999
I think you miss their point - it's standard practise pretty much everywhere to pay for mobile air time. The US is one of the only countries (or the only?) that charges people to receive a text or phone call though - this is free of charge everywhere else. I find the concept incredibly bizarre!
You may find the concept bizarre, but there are good
historic reasons for paying for airtime in the US, which I explained above. The system other countries us puts a burden on landline callers, which was considered unacceptable here in the early days of mobile phones.
It's also kind of a moot point in the US, since things have mostly gone over to unlimited (domestic + incoming) voice calling.
As for charging for texts, that's just plain gouging and has been for a long, long time -- although that's true whether incoming
or outgoing. A text is about 1/8th of a second of compressed voice data; even at the 1990s rate of 30c a minute (give or take) for airtime, that's about 1/16th of a cent worth of airtime.