And because, until recently, there was very little information about what it actually cost companies to provide text messages. Text messages offer an interesting glimpse into what the future of the cell service industry will look like and how they can adapt. They've been marketing themselves based on offering more and more minutes when people talk less and less, year over year, on their phones. So while they now started offering unlimited talk time plans, that doesn't actually target the needs of many customers.
I think you could make just as good an argument that it is not the text messaging charge that has become ridiculous but the talk-time charge. Most of us on post-paid plans are paying something, typically, like $30-50 for talk time, $20-30 for data, and $5-15 for text messaging. Of the three, we probably use data the most and SMS next, or vice versa. But of the three, the SMS charge is the lowest, and we're really being overcharged for the talk time we don't use anymore.
