> I pay that at least much for my family, hence why I used it
and your article says
> Having a $200/mo smartphone is now a participation cost for many things such as getting access to your banking information remotely, medical records, and work / school.
It sounds like you're trying to communicate that you pay at least $200/month per smartphone for your family? Or you don't value precision in communication.
I know you've got a lot going on with a small business, and a new kid... but if money is important to you, maybe spend the time to switch to prepaid phone plans. There's lots of options [1], whatever network you need, you can do direct operator plans, MVNO owned by the operator, or like actual MVNO. If you're short on time and T-Mobile's network works for you, MintMobile has a promo going right now where $180 pays for 12 months of "unlimited" which is $15/month if you divide it out.
> I also pay $1250 per month to TriNet for the privilege of being able to buy their health insurance in the first place - sure, I get some other benefits too, but I’m the only US-based employee currently so this overhead is really 100% me.
Do you live in a state with a reasonable healthcare exchange? You might want to shop and see if an off the shelf plan from the exchange is better than paying TriNet to get access to their insurance; it may well be, but you should check. If you only have one US employee, and it's you, there's a lot of expense for not a lot of value IMHO. It's not really Apples to Apples though --- I think a lot of the TriNet plans have out of state coverage where a lot of exchange plans don't.
> It sounds like you're trying to communicate that you pay at least $200/month per smartphone for your family? Or you don't value precision in communication.
You're moving the goal posts here. You have to have service, realistically, in order to use it like a real person.
I'm trying to figure out what you're getting for $200/month.
Is it for "a smartphone" with service, and presumably financing the phone as well? Or is it the total for all of your family's smartphones, which is how many phones/lines?
Do they come with free mid-tier phones? What if you need 4-5 lines? What if, as a CEO, he needs a better plan than "basic prepaid, lowest-priority-subject-to-throttling"?
And what if the CEO needs international numbers across all continents?
What if the CEO needs to supply an entire 1,332 person company with business phones?
What about an assistant to answer them! What if we're sleeping!
Oh god!
But just to put my comment in context, here is what he said:
> Having a $200/mo smartphone is now a participation cost for many things such as getting access to your banking information remotely, medical records, and work / school.
Okay, so on the non-budget side, I pay ~$64/mo for T-mobile's "unlimited[1]" plan and a Google Pixel phone. ($57/mo for the service, and I've amortized the phone price to ~$7/mo based on my lifetime average phone lifetime. Even if you amortize the phone over only its ridiculously short warranted lifetime, that's $42/mo for the phone, or $99/mo, but that implies purchasing a new phone yearly, which most people do not do (the average phone lifespan is just under 3y).)
In over a decade, the only time I hit that cap was because I let my kid watch too many videos on it.
5 GB is pretty reasonable for the bulk of the country. The only common things that can make it go over are games and streaming - both of which really are luxuries if you simply can't wait till you have Wifi access. So yeah - of course you should pay a lot more if you insist on doing those things.
This is akin to him saying that average American needs X money for the car to participate in society, and you suggest that his numbers don't math because one could:
1. Walk around everywhere (Idaho, Iowa)
2. move to New York (with ok public transportation)
Mobile phone and unlimited high-speed internet are requirements for participation in society.
> unlimited high-speed internet are requirements for participation in society
I pay $7/mo (not a typo) for 1GB mobile data via US Mobile, and I have never hit that cap in many years. I just don't stream video or audio unless on WiFi, which is not a hardship. Respectfully, what on earth are you talking about?
My monthly mobile internet usage is 5-25GB. And this is me working from home using wifi, having cheap internet (slow, but unlimited) and barely being outside. Phone wifi usage is 150-250GB/month.
Well, I have to wonder what you are doing on your phone. I don't restrict my usage at all outside of video and audio streaming, so I'm befuddled as to how you use 10-50 times more data than I do.
Last month, 429MB used:
107 YouTube music
91 Google maps
70 Firefox
22 Amazon
Miscellaneous other small amounts
WiFi usage 26GB
I don't doubt that you use a lot of internet, but that amount is far away from a "requirement to participate in society" .
I watch a lot of videos (with increased speed). Also Telegram is a big consumer of bandwidth.
Also, since I live in Europe, I don't use car (otherwise would obviously not able to watch videos during travel), but public transportation. And using mobile internet is normal, nobody cares to ask for cafe wifi or to even type it in despite being visible on the wall. This is very freeing. Perhaps more than Americans can imagine, since the limits are internalized. Analogy would be the freedom Americans feel, after they move to Europe and realize that they don't have to worry about becoming broke due to sudden health problems. This is a constant worry that Americans have, but the extend of which is fully understood only after the shackles have been dropped.
Like, a lot of people here don't even have a separate internet connection at home, but are simply using their phone's shared internet with their laptops. That's how normal it is. And these "no limits" contracts are what allows the change in behavior to FULLY utilize the technology, without the need to limit oneself.
A lot depends on how one understands the word "participate". I mean, is eating the diet of only oats, eggs and protein powder enough to "have eating needs met" or is the requirement limit at "balanced food diet, with cost not influencing decisions"?
In my opinion requirement can be rephrased into "can fulfill all the phone/internet needs, without limits, without restricting oneself". So in this sense your internet requirement is 26.5GB and we have to look at the price of the phone connect that would provide at least this much at full speed.
Worrying about what the wifi password is for this place is such an old-school thing in America. Europeans and Asians find it baffling.
If you have internet access on your phone while you're actively moving, it should work all the time, without any traffic limits or the need to keep asking for shitty cafe wifi (because your mobile internet is even worse).
It really reminds me of the Healthcare System conversations, when Americans are justifying why their way of doing things is logical and correct, while the rest of the world shakes their heads.
