The End of Annual Contracts.


Today, T-Mobile announced a brand new no-annual-contract plan on their blog.

This move (along with the earlier news of AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile), just points to my theory that the age of annual contracts is over. This is an extension of a theory that had me predicting a couple of years ago, that the most expensive phone call we will ever make will cost no more than the equivalent of 8 US Cents per minute, no matter what the distance between the speakers is.

Recently I have extended that theory to predict that paid texts/SMS will soon be a thing of the past...at most, two more years (the time it should take for all phones/packages to have the ability to send e-mails). It shouldn't take man much longer to figure out that e-mails which cost next to nothing compared to texts, can send attachments and do not have absurd character limitations.

Back to my post title, the age of two-year contracts is not compatible with the internet age. The fact that you sucker...em...I mean lock your customers into long-term contracts tells me that your product is highly marked-up. The internet age does not favor highly marked up commodities. Yes I said it...wireless access is now a commodity.

For highly commoditized markets, the barriers to entry have been greatly lowered (if not removed) by the internet, thanks to vast improvements in the availability of information and increases in the speed of communication. Thanks to said technology, the age of the dictatorial monopoly is over. Piss the people off for long enough and they will elect a new leader.

Welcome to the future T-Mobile, it's taken you long enough!

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