Despite a deep conviction that SMS pricing is a complete scam, I chose to bite the bullet and pay the $5/month just to avoid this very issue. Some people (e.g. my mother) have taken a liking to sending texts, and I didn’t want to have to keep a running count and grit my teeth every time I receive one.
I don’t know about the other service providers, but T-Mobile’s pay as you go plan doesn’t let you add unlimited texting. I fixed that with Google Voice.
You’re so right. I just realized that I read his post on my phone. Evidently, that’s not allowed.
:smack:
I don’t know if my solution works for anybody else but here it is: I have texting blocked on my AT&T iPhone, so anybody who doesn’t know my Policy* and texts me will never get an answer. Unless they have an iPhone, then it goes to iMessage and it’s free! For all other users, I have an app called TextNow, which is free because it has ads (and I don’t care). The disadvantage of it is that you have to tell people who you are if it’s not someone you’ve already established a relationship with. The advantage is, I only text with a few people and they all know my TextNow ID.
Furthermore, I texted very little until the advent of SIRI. It amuses my husband and I that we didn’t text until we could speak our texts. Like, you know, talking on the phone. 
- I refuse to pay for texting. It costs the phone companies nothing to provide the service and they’re raping the populace with the ridiculously exorbitant prices they charge for texting.
You can come up with ways of politely requesting no text messages, but in practical terms, no matter what you say, many people are going to take offense. You’ve got a phone; you’ve got text messaging enabled; people are going to want to text you. And telling people not to is going to come off as “I don’t want to hear from you” to a lot of people, even if that’s not what you mean to say.
It’s really just inevitable: If you have a front door, the brush salesman will knock; if you have a doorbell, the Jehovah’s Witnesses will ring; if you have a postal address, you’ll get unsolicited credit card offers; if you have a telephone, someone will call during dinner.
That’s nothing to be proud of.
And have you considered that you’re not actually “talking to a machine” any more than when you leave someone a note that you’re “sending a letter to a piece of paper”?
There do exist regimes in the world where the government has the inclination to make and execute plans like these.
For the record, I resisted for a long time getting a cell phone, just because when cell phones first came around, you only ever saw assholes using them, so I associated them with assholes. But eventually I came around, when I realized that having a cellphone facilitated meeting people who are on the move.
And these days, everyone is on the move. I don’t have a land line any more, because I hardly ever am in the situation in which I’m at home leisurely receiving phone calls. If I’m at home, I’m either busy or sleeping.
I consider a mobile telephone to be a critical personal safety issue. No one should ever be without a debit card, keys, and phone. If I had kids, I would be worried about sending them to school without their own phones.
How do you configure your phone to not receive texts?
OK, perhaps I overstated a bit. But the last time my wife tried to get a non-smart phone from AT&T, the selection was abysmal, and the one she ended up with is the best of a bad bunch, but still pretty bad. In a world where my even my technophobe mother has an iphone, phones without email, or the ability to install a free texting app, are getting pretty sparse.
The fact remains that the people in my life who text often and who text me without a second thought are also the ones who have data plans. They aren’t pressing “555-666-555” into an old Nokia flip-phone. And if you’ve got a data plan, the idea of paying for an additional plan for texts (which, when you get right down to it, ARE data, just a very specific kind) seems preposterous to me.
Look, if someone needs to text me, ok fine, I understand. But what I’d like to eliminate is the texts that aren’t necessary. Like I just got one from my cousin saying, “your email was too funny.” If you read my email and thought it was funny, why text me about it? Just hit reply, type “too funny!” and hit send!
What I’d really like to say, if it gave no offense and didn’t paint me as weird is, “I am not a part of the texting culture. If you have no other convenient way to contact me about something important, go ahead and text. If it’s something you would have dropped a dime into a payphone for in the old days, feel free. If it’s something frivolous and not time-critical, wait until you can email, call, or see me. I do not need to be on your list of “merry xmas” texts. I do not need a “Thanks” text in response to my reluctant text answer to your text question. And if you, like me, find paying for both texts AND data silly, please install an app that will let us text for free.”
Obviously, as evidenced by this thread it’s a losing battle. But thanks to those who commiserated with me at least. 
“New Update - this just in - Cranky curmudgeon, with crap phone plan, (pays per text!), prefers emails, for most things. Thanks for understanding!”
Ought to do the trick!
Can I get that on a T-shirt?
Yes, email is free but also a bit less real time. One has to open the email, send a message and keep checking email to see if there is a response.
There is no comparison to a text to a phone call. Rarely can I call someone and say, “Pick up milk” or ask “What time is the party?” without some sort of pleasantry needing to be exchanged taking up a lot more time.
If you don’t want to pay the extra three or four bucks, simply tell your friends that you pay per text and would rather not unless there is no other option. I would call rather than text though.
I see a lot of parallels here with email in the 1990s. I remember how many of my friends and coworkers resisted using email for years and years. They’d ridicule the whole idea of email as redundant and unnecessary. “Uh, HELLO? Ever heard of a PHONE?” was a typical remark. When email became more commonplace, and many employers began assigning email accounts to all their employees, the remaining holdouts dug in their heels. They’d proudly describe themselves as Luddites and insist that everyone else adapt to their communication preferences, demanding phone calls and (paper) letters. Now, I’d be hard pressed to name someone I know who doesn’t use email in at least a limited way.
I’m one of those people who doesn’t have an unlimited texting plan and pays a quarter to send a text. So far it’s been okay, but I realize that sooner or later I’m going to have to face the music and change my phone plan. Telling my friends “don’t text me, I have to pay for them” is starting to look a little weird and silly, and I appreciate that texting can be pretty useful in certain situations.
I’m astonished that this isn’t a ten-year old zombie thread.
I don’t have cellphone service here in the mountains except through my Internet access.
My friends who text me, do so through my Gmail address.
I reply in short messages.
It works fine, but I don’t pay for it by message (or even bandwidth).
My smartphone acts as a portable computer tied into my LAN.
I have repeaters all over the property (15 acres or so) so I am rarely out of touch even when I am out mowing the meadow or clearing trees. Not that I feel obliged to answer immediately.
In answer to the OP, I would just say that I prefer not to be bothered with texts. Yes, it makes you look out-of-touch and a bit of a Luddite, but if these are your friend, then they probably already know your propensity for such behavior. Mine certainly do.
I’ve gone through and past E-mail now. I consider it obsolete for personal or urgent communications. E-mail is for paying bills and advertising and other mass, low-priority messages (just like the paper post). For personal messages, message me on Facebook or text message my phone. For urgent messages, place a phone call or use the office’s instant messenger. If you want to send a message that I might never open, send E-mail.
In what substantive way is an email different than a text message, except that one requires Internet access and the other does not? Both are asynchronous methods of communication via text, and both are usable from either a computer or a phone.
My primary communications tool is my cellphone, on which I handle most of my email and most of my text messages, and I don’t know what the huge issue about that is. Are you saying I can’t email from my phone either because it’s not a computer?
If you don’t want to address the money issue, just tell people who text you that, “The best way to reach me is via phone or e-mail - I don’t generally read texts.” Of course, I don’t think it’d be rude to tell them that you get charged for texts, either.
I used to think texting was for douches. I have kids now and it’s really nice to be able to just IM my husband or text him to ask him to grab milk or to go back and forth to coordinate evening pickup times. I spend anywhere from 4-8 hours of my day in meetings, most of them on the phone; texting and IM’ing have become really important ways for me to communicate in the last two or three years.
Exactly. If you don’t want to be an asshole, you need to explain the situation. If some of the people that give advice here actually took their own advice I’d imagine they wouldn’t have too many friends.
Exactly. I do not have too many friends, I have exactly enough. Glad we are in agreement!
You have to pay to receive a message in the states? Is that common? (world over I mean) I’m from India, and even in the earliest days of mobile telephony in India, when receiving a call was charged, receiving text messages was free.
You see that’s just it. I consider texting obsolete, at least as implemented by SMS. It’s just data. I pay $17/month for 200MB of data (the minimum plan available on my service, and hence the most expensive per MB.) The 140 8-bit characters for a text should be 140/(20010241024) of that allotment, or about 1/1000 of a cent. 20 cents is a ludicrous 20,000x markup.
It’s not that I’m a technophobe. I do understand the desire to send a quick message instead of calling. I’d have no problem using a free texting app (I’d mention the name of the one I have again, but if I do I’ll start sounding like an elaborate spammer. Lets say imessage instead, if only imessage was cross-platform). Its my aversion to paying unnecessary fees that’s the real issue.
ETA: Oh, by the way, I just went to see how many texts were in that $5 plan to compare the price per MB, and found out that’s not even an option anymore! It’s now pay-per-text or $20/month unlimited texting! Those are the only options! Thanks for nothing, AT&T.