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Comment by unlinker | Hacker News Reader

Get a phone number like everybody. You are like 0.0000001% of the market. Nobody is going to twist their product to cater to you.

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> Get a phone number like everybody.

Are you paying for it?

I can be reached by telephone. What I don't have is a unique telephone number. This works perfectly fine for actual voice communication. If you think I can simply afford an extra monthly expense, you're wrong.

> You are like 0.0000001% of the market.

Made up statistics reveal your presuppositions.

There are a lot of people that don't have a unique phone number. It's a minority position, but that's kind of my point: chat services do not inherently depend on traditional phone numbers, and requiring one is going to exclude more people than you probably realize.

In any civilised country a prepaid phone number is almost free (if not free) so requiring a unique phone number will only exclude people I don't care about.

And of course that statistic is made up. It was a joke.

Err. A SIM card which comes with a phone number costs me £0 for the SIM and £5 minimum top-up. £10 for the phone, though half my friends seem to have old phones they could probably lend me.

Are you in a country which doesn't have pay-and-go service?

Apparently even pay-as-you-go plans in the US have a fixed monthly payment: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/pay-as-you-go

You can always use Freedompop or ringplus, where after a signup fee the plans are free.

I'm in a country with a crazy healthcare system. Medical disability barely covers the absolute bare minimum; spending that 15 on a SIM (assuming I could find a phone somewhere) would require not paying of one of the drugs that are keeping me alive.

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