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Comment by podperson | Hacker News Reader

If it's an alternative to Android that doesn't let Carriers "add value" then it's an alternative they won't use. Open Source, in this case, becomes a race to the bottom in every respect.

We need carriers to be dumb pipes we buy data plans from; then this entire class of problem goes away. Until then, any platform that doesn't let carriers charge us different amounts for bits from different places is going to die on the vine.

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>> If it's an alternative to Android that doesn't let Carriers "add value" then it's an alternative they won't use.

Ideally, they shouldn't "use" any phone, because they are not the user. We should buy whatever phone we please somewhere else, with financing if necessary, and then buy service from the carriers. The whole "subsidizing" thing is a scam unless you get cheaper service by bringing your own phone, or after your phone is paid off.

Getting some popular third-party phone vendors in the US and making phone subsidies a line item in your cell phone bill are the first steps toward carriers as dumb pipes and towards true choice in phones.

Here's the real problem: The major carriers charge the same rate regardless of whether you got a free phone from them or not. The phone subsidy doesn't go away even if you paid $500 out of pocket for a Nexus.

My solution: I bought a factory unlocked iPhone 4 from Canada on ebay. I run it with a Straight Talk SIM for $45 a month, no contract, unlimited everything.

So how do we curb this voracious appetite of needing to get into every bit (data, apps, ads, other value adds) of being a telco?

I agree with what you're saying, but how do we get to a state where we can have "dumb pipes", yet have an open, privacy driven and easily user controllable OS on a device?

Is there an alternative to always needing to "add value"? Isn't earning our coin off carrier charges, data etc enough?

I think the fundamental problem is the carriers' vertically integrated business model -- Verizon and AT&T want to sell you the phone, the phone service, the data service, the TV service, etc. etc.. From the consumers' point of view we need the actual pipes to be infrastructure then we buy devices that use the pipes, and pay for services that send us stuff over the pipes. But how to get there? Massive government intervention of some kind is probably the only option. Left to the market we'll simply get the biggest most monolithic monopolies that the government allows to form.

How is owning infrastructure anything other than a low-margin hot-potato if you let yourself be turned into a dumb pipe?

Why should owning infrastructure be anything other than low margin?

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