OK, let's talk about how sending data via SMS is astronomically more expensive than sending data over a standard broadband Internet connection, a more terrestrial comparison.
Why not talk about how, for most short messages, sending an SMS is cheaper than making a phone call to transmit the same information?
The real question is: who says that the cost of transmitting information should be linear with the amount of data? If you want to transmit a hundred bytes then SMS is a good way to do it. If you want to transmit five gigs, then some other way would be better.
Because that's how things work in a lot of other services?
For instance, if you sign up for shared hosting and go over your alloted bandwidth, they may charge you $0.50 a gigabyte or so. That is linear and it seems reasonable.
What would happen if you could stream high-quality video from mobile phones? With large data transfer capabilities would come interesting new possibilities for markets, companjies, and customers.
There was an article in a major media outlet (too tired to look it up now!) within the last six months about that. It was posted on Slashdot too where a big discussion ensued about what a ridiculous comparison it was also.
