I am an inveterate texter, and although I manage perfectly well with predictive text on my little antique of a phone, I wouldn't mind using a phone with the much more efficient qwerty keyboard. I looked around at the keyboard phones that could be used WITHOUT a data plan and the prices seemed pretty reasonable, until I looked at the fine print. In large print the price was $49.99 but in fine print on the sign next to it, they explained that the lower price included a two year contract renewal. If you wanted to buy the phone outright, the price morphed into a whopping $249.99. What diabolical scheme was at work here? **See rant below**
Odds are that I will continue using my current cell phone provider for two more years anyway, so why resist the temptation of a new phone? It was my symbolic attempt to take a stand against the tyranny of those holding us all hostage. Faced with a groundswell of opposition to said tyranny I believe we could effect change. The challenge is that as we embrace each new incarnation of technology, anything resembling a groundswell becomes a trickle.
Cockeyed optimist that I am, I talked with the sales associate about ways to lower my bill. Any change to my plan that resulted in savings in one area would cause trouble in another. I could save a modest amount by lowering my minutes from 700 to 500 per month but I would then be vulnerable to expensive overages as well as a more expensive level of text messaging. I had flashbacks to first year Algebra!
**Walking out of the store, I drifted into a dream-like state as I imagined the back room in which these bizarre and arbitrary rules are formulated. A handful of people were brainstorming about how to wring the most money out of their customers without the customers noticing. I thought of the surveys they must have conducted with people in their target demographic about how much they would be willing to pay for things like unlimited text messaging or data plans before feeling as though they had been screwed.
The contract parameters that my imaginary executives came up with required a graduate school level of math proficiency but no one seemed to mind because they were, after all, getting a $249.99 phone for only $49.99! My mind then meandered to a scene from the 1976 movie "Network" in which Peter Finch exhorts people to stick their heads out their windows and yell, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna' take it anymore!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINDtlPXmmE&feature=related
As Richard Buckminster Fuller once said....“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Here's to change!
Copyright KKR March 2012
