David Defends Texting

David comments on my post below, where I'm considering not getting texting in order to save money:

Unlimited texting is a better deal than it first appears. Once you have it, you'll start texting all the time (naturally), and I find that texting is quicker and easier than other methods of communication in many instances. I was very anti-texting at first and completely changed my mind on the issue. A phone call can be an intrusive thing, and an email is too easy to ignore. Texting thus fills a useful niche.

Sounds about right, which is one reason I prefer email to phone calls in most instances.  I just hate the price discrimination behind the high charges...the marginal cost for the carriers here is pretty much zero.  For instance, Gizmodo writes about the very typical AT&T texting charges ('AT&T’s New Text Plan Overcharges You by 10,000,000 Percent'):

AT&T charges $25 for 2 gigabytes of mobile data, which states how much they think their bits and bytes are worth. That comes out to 80 megabytes per dollar. 80 megabytes will get you 500,000 text messages—assuming you're writing the largest possible message, which you're often not (i.e. "Hey" "Nothing" "lol").

Now divide that dollar by the 500,000 potential texts. That comes out to $0.000002 per text—two ten thousandths of a cent. A very, very, very small amount of money.

Now, let's say you send 5,000 texts a month. That's a large, though wholly realistic number. Multiply that by the above worthless cost per text, and you've got—hold onto your wallet!—$0.01. A penny for five thousand texts, according to how much AT&T says its data is worth in a data plan.

Update #1: Jody comments:

Yeah, it's a total rip-off, and you could arguably wait a year or two, but as soon as you get Kid #1 a cell phone, you're going to have to cave on texts. (I notice that most of my working friends rely on texts for a lot of their personal communication, and when I stopped to think about it, I realized it made perfect sense.)

I don't think I even have friends who text, but then again, I don't phone friends either.  Maybe I'll learn that I have friends who text. 

Update #2: David elaborates (and provides the standard economist non-behavoral consumer theory of rip-offs):

I text my spouse frequently with stuff like when I'm coming home or what else should I pick up at Trader Joe's. I text my partners with questions like what was the name of that patient I need to see or do you remember what time the meeting is. I text my friends with funny messages about current events or with requests for favors or outings. I text the baby sitter to ask if she can come next Saturday. All of these wouldn't really work with either a phone call or email, or at least wouldn't work as well. With the text, it stays short and a rapid reply is expected. I guess I don't care that much that I'm being ripped off in that way. If you think about it, the whole system is a rip off. This is just one piece. Stuff never costs what it's worth.

Update #3: my mother tells me she thinks texting is quite useful as well, in part to communicate with my brother. 

Update #4: googling around, it appears that you may be able to send emails that get delivered as texts, along the lines of phone_number@carrier_email_to_text.com.  I'd need to find out what my brother's carrier is.  No need to text myself.  This obviously raises the issue of how people text-to-email back. 

Comments

[Jody]

Yeah, it's a total rip-off, and you could arguably wait a year or two, but as soon as you get Kid #1 a cell phone, you're going to have to cave on texts. (I notice that most of my working friends rely on texts for a lot of their personal communication, and when I stopped to think about it, I realized it made perfect sense.)

[David]

I text my spouse frequently with stuff like when I'm coming home or what else should I pick up at Trader Joe's. I text my partners with questions like what was the name of that patient I need to see or do you remember what time the meeting is. I text my friends with funny messages about current events or with requests for favors or outings. I text the baby sitter to ask if she can come next Saturday. All of these wouldn't really work with either a phone call or email, or at least wouldn't work as well. With the text, it stays short and a rapid reply is expected.
I guess I don't care that much that I'm being ripped off in that way. If you think about it, the whole system is a rip off. This is just one piece. Stuff never costs what it's worth.