No Free Lunch

AT&T announced the end to unlimited data plans. This should not be surprising. The phone companies are not satisfied with gigantic profits, they want Oil Company profits.

The problem is that AT&T motivates the purchase of a smart phone showing how you can do things like download whole movies, stream today's basketball game and upload videos to Facebook. Those are the activities that will bring send your data stream over the cliff of data limits. But if you can't afford to do those things, why would you want a Smart Phone anyway?

Get you hooked and then charge you more than you can afford.

The cable company sent me an offer. Bundle phone, internet and tv and we'll give you a month free. The problem, after my free month the bill runs $150 per month. And don't expect much for being a loyal customer. Last night I gave them a half hour of my time doing their survey and they gave me a $5 Amazon gift card. Ain't that grand.

The corporatization of America continues. We are all supposed to shut up and be loyal consumers and never question the way the corporations save us so much money that we're constantly broke.