Glad I Have the Network

So, T-Mobile has decided to institute a text message tax.

Something about this… feels, wrong…

I remember from my government class that one of the three main factors of sovereign government is the right to tax its citizens…

Granted, my ethics professor taught that the only thing that makes a government different from us is its right to use physical violence to enforce its rules.

Nevertheless, does T-Mobile think of itself as a government now? Look, guys. You’re not a government. You don’t have the right to tax companies. You will lose customers, and you will lose more customers than you gain revenue.

Let me explain this to you people at T-Mobile: You are the fourth most popular cellular network in the nation. Even Sprint is running a good 10 million customers ahead of you. Now, why is this? You’re phones suck, you’re service sucks, and your prices suck. Granted, your customer service has been highly rated, but that’s not going to save you. It hasn’t saved you yet, has it? Pretty soon, you’re going to be behind MetroPCS (The mongoose people!). You cannot afford to press extra charges against third-party companies right now. If anything, you need to invite third-party companies to employ some exclusive features with your phones. Instead of charging ChaCha for helping people through your network, why don’t you integrate ChaCha into your phones? Sell a ChaCha membership with a service plan.

Honestly, I’m pretty sure that even a small child could understand that losing customers means that you need to make your service more desirable, not that you need to charge more.