Unacceptable.

Money has been around forever. Currency with a universal value is a necessity to the economy of any society with a large population or significantly long trade routes. What I don't understand is when people decided it was acceptable for greed to become a lifestyle. To pursue profit directly, rather than survival or comfort. To seek to obtain money in vast amounts simply as potential to buy comfort. Why is it considered okay to seek personal profit at the expense of other people survival?

People have been exploited for profit for as long as there have been people, but it's often been considered wrong. Thieves have been shunned, conquerors have been judged by net improvement of the conquered area. Cheap laborers have always been exploited, but in this modern world, in the information age, when who is being exploited and how is almost common knowledge, why does it persist? Why is it okay to ignore what would be a "fair" exchange for services and instead simply charge as much as you can get away with? Why are the exploited masses so passive, even in the richest countries in the world?

The modern information flow is so thick, shouldn't we be able to envision a system where everyone can just get along? Here is am example that I'm sure a lot of people in the US can relate to: Text Messaging. It costs a fortune. Without regular plan, it usually costs 10-20 cents per message sent OR received. Compare that to the cost of an entire minute of conversation. The amount of data transmission for a text message is insignificant compared to real-time two way audio transmission. And yet throughout the industry, consumer is charged significantly more for a small amount of data just because they can be.

Historically, the cost of sending a telegraph was extremely high because of the lack of sophisticated automation, limited telegraph lines, and expensive telegraph machines. Text messaging is a completely automated system, often more convenient than a phone call, and with much lower tolerances for delay. A ten second delay between sending a text message and it being received is insignificant, but the same delay during a phone call makes conversation extremely difficult, and yet we pay more for the easier, simpler, more convenient for everyone service. Could the phone companies, who existed and succeeded for so long without text messaging really not survive without gouging their customers? Couldn't a balance be reached where they would respect out patronage and we would respect the cost of their services?

thought for tomorrow: I need more than 250 txts a month