I really don't see that "dollars per byte" is a sensible way to measure the price of transferring data.
If it makes you feel any better, think of the SMS fee it as a five pence fee for establishing the connection, and then a negligible per-byte cost which gets rounded down to zero cents. Happy now? Is five pence really all that unreasonable a price for sending a message?
Don't get me wrong: phone companies do all sorts of things which are annoying, overpriced and/or unethical, but I don't see this as one of them.
If it makes you feel any better, think of the SMS fee it as a five pence fee for establishing the connection, and then a negligible per-byte cost which gets rounded down to zero cents. Happy now? Is five pence really all that unreasonable a price for sending a message?
Don't get me wrong: phone companies do all sorts of things which are annoying, overpriced and/or unethical, but I don't see this as one of them.