T-Mobile Reaches Agreement to Acquire Mint Mobile for Up to $1.35B
mintmobile.com
mintmobile.com
Given that Mint isn't available in Canada, I presume that you must be in the US.
If he does eventually sell it, I hope it's to fans, not a corporation.
A part of it is that it's funny and well made, the other parts is that the content doesn't have that "bullshit ad" factor, I don't know how to explain it, he knows it's an ad, you know it's an ad, nobody is hiding from it.
And you will find that 90% of comments under his video are saying the same thing I am here, the guy has essentially made watching ads fun.
(also, some of his Gin ads are hilarious, like his "Ryan Reynolds' Vasectomy" cocktail recipe)
He makes it look easy, but I'm sure it's hard to replicate.
He gets a pass, fine, sure, but goddamn.. I watched (and yes, enjoyed as a guilty pleasure) a few of those and YouTube recommended me this crime against humanity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap3JGsCAu9A
I never thought I'd say this but there is such a thing as too Canadian. Enough already. Go kick a cat or something to balance it out.
At the same time, I recognize there is a lot to be learned from that guy. God I hate marketing. And humans. I mean love. Everything will be fine, just remain positive.
Edit: Not to self, stay in your lane Kowalski. Stay. In. Your. Lane.
Using commas between adjectives would help with readability to optimize your content engagement. As it stands, it can be difficult to distinguish between adjectival phrases that use nouns like "foam finger." Since diarrhea can be foamy with integrated gaseous contents and I guess can be initiated with a finger (maybe?), it is unclear if the phrase should be "foam, finger, verbal diarrhea" or "foam finger, verbal diarrhea."
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/204202/can-the-o...
In terms of why T-Mobile is making this purchase, I'm pretty sure it's to take out someone who was eating their lunch.
I've always found it strange that an MVNO is able to operate on the T-Mobile network the entire time and undercut their rates so much that they become a threat.
I guess T-Mobile thinks there are two ways to resolve this: lower their rates to compete with the MVNO, or buy the MVNO ... which I'm sure will result in rate increases, even though they say they have no immediate plans to do that.
Think about it less as a network operating on T-Mobile's network and more of being a customer on T-Mobile's network. It's the same economics dictating wholesaling. The manufacturer or operator (in this case), can give a good deal to a customer with a lot of volume, does not have provide support, brick and mortar locations, or anything with customer server, just a high-level tech support for getting their systems integrated with the network.
You touched on a point that reminds of what Amazon does: let independent sellers create or list (and therefore assume all risk of) new products and copy them under the basics brand and undercut the original seller(s).
In a season vacation homes part of the country, where peak capacity is unused much of the year, it works out great.
For T-Mobile, they win no matter what. They can afford $1.5 billion.
It is especially interesting that this acquisition is taking place at the same time Boost Mobile is experiencing a major technical problem. The problem has persisted for many weeks and has even forced them to shut down payment processing. During this period, their support team has been totally useless.
In other words, Boost has a lot of very unhappy customers looking to jump ship and you can be sure that T-Mobile is aware of the situation..
I tried every MVNO and find myself stuck on Verizon postpaid spending $90/mo because my phone actually works. If you live in a major city, throttling is the norm, not the exception, on these MVNOs.
In the end they couldn't figure out why my transfer failed and why I was stuck in limbo. They said they would escalate to their "Technician" who never got back to me.
Doing some research on Reddit I discovered that this is a common issue with that MVNO. So now here I was, never got onto visible while Google Fi is now informing me my service is about to be terminated because from their end I transfered out.
Keep in mind this whole saga took many hours to get to this point. I decided at that point to get away from this MVNO as fast as I could. I call up Google and they said they are missing the pin and some details to initiate transfer back to Google.
Visible says they dont have that data and to talk to google. I had no idea what to do and no one to ask for help so I decided to wait to see what would happen. Would I lose my number i've had for 15+ years? Turns out nope, Google Fi kept providing me service while keeping me in a perpetual state of "pending termination".
I just stuck with them for the time being because I didn't want to deal with anymore headaches. Eventually I tried to sign up for T-Mobile proper and they managed to get the phone transfered.
I've used multiple MVNOs (Ting, Tracfone,That Walmart MVNO,Mint,Xfinity mobile, visible and a few others). They all seem like they are gimped in some way whether it be delayed SMS, slow speeds, but now i've learned that another way they cut corners is with horrendous support and processes. As long as I can afford it, I will stay the hell away from these guys and I totally understand why so many others do as well.
And yeah, its "throttled". Doing a speed test right now on a Pixel 6a with good 5G signal I'm only getting 11Mbit down/21Mbit up while I'm sure the same phone on T-Mo proper would be getting >50Mbit, probably 100Mbit easy. But for my needs, that doesn't really matter. I'm not trying to stream a non-transcoded Blu-Ray rip from my NAS to my phone while I'm out and about and without WiFi. Usually if I'm without WiFi its because I'm out doing something, and I'm just wanting to look up something on an app like Google Maps or stream music or look up which aisle some product is supposed to be or get an email/IM or something along those lines. Which, 10Mbit is plenty for all of those needs.
Obviously everyone's usage is going to be different. Some people practically live their digital life entirely relying on their cellular connection and are rarely around WiFi, and its worth it for them to pay more for more performance. Different carriers have different amount of coverage and customers in different parts of even the same city. But for a lot of people like me, I'd practically get no difference in my normal experiences whether I paid $15 or $80 in my usage even if that meant my speeds on the go went from 10Mbit to 1000Mbit, except for my bank account being $780 lighter at the end of the year.
It's the same network, but you get the capacity that's left over after everyone on T-Mobile has had their fill. Which is why I don't get why everyone is always so excited about these MVNOs. To me, it's like bragging about how cheap airfare is when you go standby: "It's the exact same planes!".
EDIT: Oh, and I totally forgot about tethering. That can be severely restricted on MVNOs. And, at least for me, I don't need it. Until I need it. Then I NEED it. haha
I've also never had any problems with tethering on a MVNO; I think the restrictions are only for the "unlimited" plans which don't make a lot of sense (may as well get service from the major carrier at that point). In my experience, if you're paying for x GB per month, you are free to use that via tethering without extra interference from the carrier.
As others have mentioned, Mint (and many other MVNOs) has tethering included in all plans without any extras. It counts against your data allotment just like any other data, as it should be.
As a Verizon, Tmobile, or Att customer you might be able to get 1gbps down .. but why do you need that on your phone?
Why are they popular? It makes little sense to pay $90 a month per line. With MVNOs the price is about 20-30$/mo. (Options out there: StraightTalk, USMobible, Lycia, Mint, Visble, Ting, Google FI, etc) Some of these carriers are even getting in international calling and roaming at an affordable price.
Switched to US Mobile (which as long as you have a 5G capable phone, puts you on their high-priority QoS tier) and haven't had an issue since.
I also tether and it just cuts into my ordinary data.
If you’re already am Xfinity Internet subscriber, it’s even cheaper, and the app makes switching between data plans dead simple and achievable within about a minute from the app.
I subscribe to the cheapest option, and if I ever need more data, I just bump up the plan for the rest of the month.
Verizon has historically had the edge because of 750 MHz (Band 13)
I've been a customer of theirs for years, and like you, I barely ever use more than 1/2 GB of data. I always preferred the VZ network in my area as well. Not sure if VZ carried over the tradition, but TotalWireless used to run nice Black Friday sales on low-midrange Android phones as well. I highly recommend one of the Motorola phones around the $200-$300 (less on sale) price point.
Whoever is paying that much probably doesn't do his/her research or have access to some providers.
I pay $35/mo to T-Mobile. 5 GB at high speed per month. Unlimited everything else.
Seems their minimum is now $40/mo, but it goes down to $35/mo if you have two lines.
I'm sure some MVNOs are a lot cheaper, and I'm all for it. But complaining that the alternative is $90/mo is hard to swallow.
You are delusional if you think T-Mobile and the other big network providers offer good value for money.
Having recently switched to Mint after years of being swindled by T-Mobile, I'm really sad to see this news.
What part of
> I'm sure some MVNOs are a lot cheaper, and I'm all for it.
did you not understand?
BTW, T-Mobile's cheapest plan now has 10GB - which is more than probably 95% of users need? Paying $60/mo for that via Mint is just money thrown away for most people. To give you an example, I never exceeded 5 GB/mo, let alone 10GB, in over 10 years of using smartphones.
etc.
It's been that way for a long time.
Last I checked, it had half the monthly data (2GB vs 4GB) and the same unlimited voice and texts policy. I don't follow along closely, so the limits may have changed again.
I wonder if they will reorganize any of that after acquiring Mint.
I live in a major metro area that should theoretically be impacted by sheer volume of use, and I’ve also spent significant time on the road traveling (recent 7K mile overlanding trip through 15 states is one example), and never once experienced a slowdown.
Wireless networks are pretty fast these days, and if I’ve ever been throttled, I just haven’t noticed.
YMMV, and maybe I don’t have use cases that are impacted by this, but after experiencing what I’ve experienced, I have no questions at all about my decision to move away from the big networks.
I’ve used Mint and Xfinity Mobile (Verizon MVNO).
> To me, it's like bragging about how cheap airfare is when you go standby: "It's the exact same planes!"
The experience and cost of using cheap airfare/standby is pretty well documented and rather dissimilar conceptually to what’s going on with MVNOs. The cheap ticket experience isn’t just “same planes”, it brings with it a very real likelihood of failure and customers generally go in knowing this up front.
If MVNOs were unusable as often as standby flights are unavailable, the business model would quickly cease to exist.
I find the notion of bragging about any of this for any reason rather odd, but it’s hard to ignore the significant savings over time.
Nah, those towers tend to be built & upgraded to have the capacity. Where you mostly notice the MVNO suckage is if you take the biggest road out of town, drive two hours, make a left turn, and then drive an hour away from everything. But then again, wide coverage has historically not been T-mo's strength anyway (they've improved a lot in last few years).
I covered this in the 2nd half of the quoted sentence. I spent over a month in places like that throughout the US, and didn’t have issues.
I’m not saying issues don’t exist, but I never ran into the described suckage.
Finding a spot out there with poor signal isn’t hard, but that’s a separate issue.
It's been mostly good, but MVNOs do get throttled traffic in some situations. When I lived in the SF Bay Area, it was somewhat annoying to frequently get throttled on a crowded BART train or just while walking around downtown in the middle of the day. But for the most part, it worked fine, and I adjusted to make things work better for me (download offline music and podcasts for commutes, that sort of thing). It's a great option for people who are cheap and patient about internet data speeds.
If they say they have no "immediate" plans, it means they have medium-term plans already worked out. Gotta hate corporate doublespeak.
It looks like Mint also doesn't include taxes and fees in their plans (See Taxes, Fees, and Surcharges https://www.mintmobile.com/plan-terms-and-conditions/). Taxes and fees can easily become a large portion of one's bill. It looks like that 12-month 4GB plan will have a $14 recovery fee ($1.17/mo) plus 2.5% ($0.38/mo). On top of that, there's the Federal Universal Service Fee (~10%, ~$1.50/mo) and whatever state/local taxes and fees exist in your area (which are probably 10-15%, but might be above 20% if you live in a high-wireless-tax state like Illinois). So that $15 4GB plan is likely around $20/mo (a third higher).
When you look at Mint's 12-month unlimited plan, it's $30/mo + taxes and fees - and it's not even unlimited! It's a 35GB plan! Plus, when you add in the taxes and fees, it's likely to cost over $38-40/mo.
Heck, on the 3-month 4GB plan, you'd be paying $25/mo + $1.50/mo in recovery fees + 2.5% ($0.63/mo) + USF and state/local taxes and fees bringing the plan to around $32-33/mo for a 4GB plan. A big portion of your savings is that you're willing to pre-pay for a year.
You can literally see that Mint values the 1-year advance payment as worth $10.58/mo to them (including the difference in recovery fees). So it's not just "Mint is $15 (really $20 with taxes/fees)." It's that pre-paid annual billing is probably worth $10-15/mo (given that I'm comparing a 3-month and 12-month plan and Mint's site doesn't seem to list 1-month plans).
> shaking my head at those who are paying double or triple that rate on T-Mobile
I think what a lot of people miss when thinking about plans is phone promos. If you don't want the latest phones, that's great and you shouldn't be on a plan offering phone promos.
For example, let's say you want a new iPhone every 2 years. T-Mobile will give you $800 in credits when you trade in your device. The trade-in is likely worth $300 making the credits worth $500. Each month you'd be getting $20.83 in credits. Let's say you're on a family plan with 4 lines and paying $42.50/line. When you subtract out the phone promo, you're down to $21.67 which is almost the same price as the Mint plan once you factor in the taxes and fees that you're paying on Mint. Plus you don't have to pre-pay a year in advance. Plus you're getting unlimited data, 40GB of hotspot, a $15 Netflix credit, 5GB of high-speed data when traveling internationally, and more. Divide that $15 Netflix credit and it becomes $3.75/line dropping the price to $17.91/line and you're getting unlimited data instead of 4GB and a cheaper price.
If you don't want fancy phones and don't want unlimited data, it might not be worth it to you. You can think of it as companies figuring out how to charge people the same money in different ways. Mint is giving you a very limited data bucket, adding taxes and fees onto the plan, and you have to buy your phone at full price. T-Mobile is offering phone promos and entertainment credits that can make the plan effectively cheaper than Mint while offering unlimited data and even international roaming.
> In terms of why T-Mobile is making this purchase, I'm pretty sure it's to take out someone who was eating their lunch.
It's highly unlikely that Mint was eating their lunch. It's more likely that T-Mobile wants a brand that can sell limited-data bundles to people like you who don't want to pay for an unlimited plan, pay for the overhead of stores, etc.
The problem with your argument is that you're comparing apples and oranges. First, you discount how much you're paying by going with the nominal charge and ignoring taxes and fees. Then you ignore the fact that you're getting 4GB of data rather than unlimited data. If I compare Mint's "unlimited" plan (which is actually only a 35GB plan), it's suddenly the same price as offerings you can get from T-Mobile (on a family plan) or its Metro sub-brand (as an individual). If you price in phone promos, entertainment, etc. T-Mobile's offerings can be a lot cheaper.
No, Mint isn't eating T-Mobile's lunch, but they have created a good following among people like yourself who aren't looking for an unlimited data bucket and want a low monthly fee and are willing to pay for a year in advance. If T-Mobile were concerned about Mint eating their lunch, they could just increase their MVNO fees. No, Mint has found a way to get people to pay for limited network access in advance which means a lot lower churn and a lot lower billing costs - Mint itself values annual billing at over $10/mo compared to quarterly billing!
Mint's rates aren't really lower than T-Mobile's. You're just interested in saving money on a limited-data bulk-purchase product that T-Mobile doesn't sell (and doesn't want to clutter their current brands with).
> If you don't want fancy phones and don't want unlimited data, it might not be worth it to you.
People bothering to try and save $20-30/mo probably aren't the target market for upgrading a $1000 device every year or two.
Also, I don't like the financial shenanigans pushing me to upgrade when I might not otherwise care to.
> Let's say you're on a family plan with 4 lines and paying $42.50/line.
Lets say I'm not, because I'm not. A huge market full of people don't need 4 lines. So their cheapest plan would be $60/mo before taxes and fees. No Netflix credit. No upgrade credit. Tethering is only at 3G speeds without paying more. I'm not even sure what the taxes and fees are for this T-Mo plan, but even including it with Mint means the plan is $452.75 more per year than what I paid for Mint. Sure, I'd get unlimited data, but I don't even regularly use the 10GB I pay for on Mint.
I do agree the economics of these larger carrier post-paid plans start to make a lot more sense when you're buying in a big family plan group and they start throwing in a lot of other perks that you may want anyways. But if you're just wanting a single line and don't constantly buy new devices, the larger carrier post paid plans still often work out to be a lot more expensive unless you actually really use tons of data in a month, really want faster speeds all the time, or live in a place where these MVNOs are just truly unreliable.
Good for the founders, they championed MVNO space in some way. Perhaps bad for Mint customers - T-Mobile wouldn’t just purchase them for no reason.
Even though Mint wasn't useful to me, T-Mobile buying them means that monopolies are getting away with consuming the competition to create a price fixed environment. Congress is too tied up investing based on insider information to ever protect our interests as consumers, so I'll just look forward to the day where I no longer need a mobile phone perhaps. :/
They know that not everyone would be able to afford the top tier of service. If Toyota were the only car company, they wouldn't only offer top end Lexus models. They would probably retain the various tiers, and simply try to capture the maximum consumer surplus at each tier.
There's no particular reason why a monopolist would want to remove a cheaper priced but lower functionality service, so long as it is profitable.
By integrating the businesses they might actually be able to find efficiencies and cost savings that make it even more profitable via economies of scale.
Whether those efficiencies end up as consumer savings is a question of how competitive the market is, but I don't see how this would necessarily harm the customer experience.
Might be able to reduce redundant storefronts, headcount, software as a service platforms, etc. Might be able to save money on employee benefits by leveraging larger group policies. They could do all of this while keeping things about the same or better for customers.
The only reason to actually eliminate the lower end of the pricing model is if it is unprofitable. Others would fill the space if they just killed it.
They never do because the WHOLE point of becoming a monopoly or near monopoly is so that the customer no longer dictates the terms of their relationship with the company. The company does. It is about a power shift and simply put power being taken from the customer is never good for the customer.
It is just enabling a lower tier of customer to operate on the same stack as everyone else.
This is vertical integration, not horizontal integration.
The level of monopolization remains the same.
And even with a monopoly, some of the benefit of simple convenience could come into play when there is acquisitions.
Not having to go to a separate store and maintain separate accounts for different things.
Having a cable company that sucks and a phone company that sucks is not good. If they merged and the service remained the same then now you just have two bundled services that both suck.
Yet, having a bundled plan would potentially be more convenient.
T-Mobile offers streaming services, home internet, and other things that Mint doesn't.
And I didn't say you would get a great deal from a rational monopolist. I said that you would get tiered services that keep consumer surplus as low as possible.
But T-Mobile is not a monopoly.
Re: competition being removed, that really sucks. I'm a Google Fi customer which has similar pricing, only downside is that if I switch to an iPhone, the service pretty much becomes useless as you lose access to WiFi calling and hotspots, things that work seamlessly on my Pixel :/
Edit: Apparently Google Fi now supports WiFi calling and mobile hotspots on iPhone as of iOS 13 Hmmmmm, maybe I can switch with no problems now.
In applications/browsers without an adblocker, ads just show up as broken or don't bother loading. In Firefox/Mull/etc with uBlock Origin, it's redundant as those block and hide.
I used to use AdAway (maintains a system-wide blacklist added to your hosts file) but when I got my current phone I didn't bother unlocking superuser access and I believe the non-root version uses a VPN type solution. The custom DNS works almost as well.
Downside is that Adguard has a record of your DNS lookups, but normally your ISP or whoever has that so I consider it a wash. YMMV.
The UBo team seems to want to find a way to punish users for MV3, removing features that AG MV3 has managed to implement, like adding custom filters. I don't need much of that, but I do need the ability.
The idea is to push uBlock fans (like myself) over to Firefox to use their full implementation. Not only is MV2's time limited in FF, but I used FF for 20 years straight. I'm not going back because there's enough web glitches with it that I don't want to anymore.
AdGuard seems to be doing a great job on mobile and desktop. Your comment just further backed up what I've been finding lately.
I think Mint and Boost throttle down to around 512kb/s, although not sure as I've never experienced, tested, or read about it myself.
If you're downtown there is a 80% chance you will not even be able to load a website or youtube, its basically unusable.
I know T-Mobile is working to up capacity, but I had to switch to Google Fi to get any real reliability.
I'm pretty happy with my current mobile provider (a Verizon low-priority MVNO), but if that changed I might seriously think about something that runs on T-Mobile.
Now I can't think of any time in recent years that I've gotten no service. The strength of coverage does occasionally drop if I'm way out in the boonies but it's so much better than it used to be.
T-Mobile subscribers had coverage in Nebraska because they paid to peer for their subscribers, but Mint Mobile customers did not benefit from that.
Looking at Mint's coverage map, Nebraska now has coverage (it only took until 2023!)
Mind sharing who it is? Especially if you like them. I've been a Mint user for years, but I'm not a fan of T-Mobile (the company) and during some recent travels I've noticed that Mint-to-Mint calls have gotten really bad.
Wouldn't that mean it has never been usable?? When has it not been steadily growing? It has been steadily growing since at least the 70s.
The FAQ implies this purchase is in name only, so far, unlike the Sprint purchase. No immediate change in cost or support.
T-Mobile's security, however, I am not comfortable with.
I'll be keeping my eye on other MVNOs, but how long until they're bought out by the competition?
I've seen anecdotal reports on HN, but is there anything more substantive about how they do in relation to other carriers?
They already offer Metro (‘Metro by T-Mobile’), the more-T-Mobile-branded branded “Connect by T-Mobile” with similar pricing to Mint (which they seem to try to keep secret?!), and more expensive “T-Mobile Prepaid” plans.
Metro: https://www.metrobyt-mobile.com/
Connect: https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect
Prepaid: https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/home
Consumer Cellular is great, but still expensive by comparison.
Also, an older family member has modest needs and is budget conscious, so Mint has been great for their cell phone and even their rural internet. And boy they do not like change so if I have to change things again it'll be a pain in the butt.
But, professional sports teams print money. Most of the infrastructure is funded by tax payers. Salary caps (this includes baseball) keep expenditures down. Fans root for laundry, so rationality is out the window. Just look at baseball, you can pull down a healthy profit while having a dog-crap team (looking at you Pirates). As long as the team is a private entity, there is zero financial incentive to put a winning team on the field. Owning a sports team is a pretty sweet deal.
That's a keeper, thanks!
> Sports franchises are how we knight people in this country
"Anyone who quotes profits of a baseball club is missing the point. Under generally accepted accounting principles, I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss, and I can get every national accounting firm to agree with me."
There are all kinds of financial tricks one can play. I'm a baseball fan, so I'm going to lean on that sport, but I assume other sports do similar things. Let's say you are the Red Sox. Your parent company also owns 80% of the regional sports network (NESN) that broadcasts the bulk of your games. If you sell that TV contract to NESN for $1, then you just "lost" a hell of a lot of money. Except that money isn't lost at all. It just moves from the right pocket to the left pocket. Same thing with parking cars. Just start an external company to park the cars. Profits go to the company, not the team.
That's the real crux of the problem. Revenue not generated by the team isn't counted toward profitability. That's why most sports teams are advocating for mixed-use facilities. All of the profits from the surrounding businesses go to the owners, but are not reported on the teams financial books. This explains why the Red Sox and Cubs are investing so heavily in real estate around the stadiums instead of say locking up Betts, Bogaerts, and Devers to build a core around which to build. Or why the A's are balking at renovating their current location in Oakland instead of getting new land to build a mixed-use facility.
Then you see the expanded playoffs. Playoff games are sold as a separate TV deal, and all money (in baseball at least) is divided equally between the teams. It doesn't matter if your team is good or not, the owners share in bounty. The modern sports franchise sees profits independent of on-the-field performance. Separating revenue streams from the team itself means that you can paint a bleaker financial picture that isn't tied to reality.
A few teams (Packers and Braves) are public. Look at their financial accounts. Again, lots of legal (and commonly used) accounting practices will obfuscate the picture a bit, but these teams serve as a blue print for what is actually happening. The financial situation is never as bad as they say. Well, there have been a few exceptions like the Dodgers under McCourt or the Rangers at the end of the Hicks era.
I could keep going, but I'll end with this. Owners lie. The Cubs said they were facing biblical losses[2]. Yet, the same family was considering purchasing Chelasea FC. So much for being poor. More than just lying, the owners expect their colleagues to adhere to this lie. MLB owners are already angry with Cohen and the Mets [3] (I'd lump the Padres in here as well). Read the quotes from unnamed sources. The owners can afford to raise payrolls, but they don't want to. The party line is to cry poor. Owners who step out of line will face some sort of fallout from this.
[1] - https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/why-small-market-excuses-... [2] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/danschlossberg/2020/06/03/cubs-... [3] - https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mets-offseason-already-ha...
But, it's missing my point that many owners are getting a 10x return on their investment when they flip the sports team mostly due to the brand going up in value, being a luxury item for the wealthy, or a status symbol, and hence growing 10x in Therefore, many new owners, and prospective ones at that as your example, the ones buying football or soccer teams...like the tech CEOs, hedge funds or Oil money, etc do so to either flip the trade to make 10x, or buy a brand to associate with for status.
Owners of teams like the As who do absolutely nothing to create a winning team get to live off the money made by other teams who are willing to spend on their teams and players.
Also, FWIW, I ejected from Fi over to Mint because the WiFi calling on Fi was indescribably bad as it "wo..cut...i..ou..can.you.hea...now?" and made me never want to call or be called more than I already was by default
That guy was on the subreddit basically acting as one man tech support, billing, and customer service. Always respected the heck out of that. Hope he made out like a bandit, his work ethic was off the charts.
Adobe-Figma
T-Mobile-Mint
I hope the current administration in power cracks down hard on these clearly anti-competitive mergers, as they did with Visa-Plaid.
I'm not a happy camper, but that's par for the course in this, the worst timeline.
I only used my old phone for actual calls... I use my smartphone wayyyyy more.
[1] - https://archive.ph/48ZOa
T-Mobile acquired Metro and Mint
AT&T acquired Cricket
Verizon acquired TracFone
Dish acquired Boost, Ting, Republic, and Gen
---
From experience, Dish has been awful to deal with after acquisition: service barely works anymore
mintmobile.com/unicornAverage income in US: $4585/mo.
Considering most streaming/online services are out of reach for Indians, due to cost, and not for Americans, there is significantly lower impact on cell service. 4GB/$15 is isn't unreasonable for most people and can provide plenty of data for Spotify/Waze/browsing. Of course, that varies a lot when you start streaming movies over your dataplan. You'll hit 4GB in no time.