day 2219: Zero-Rating

“Whatever they did in their lifetime—loving, hating, envying—is all long gone. They no longer play a part in anything here on earth.”

The promise from the cellphone carrier is that certain apps and services won’t count against our data plans.  These are called Zero-Rating Apps and I predict there will be more and more of them.  In actuality, there is probably plenty of bandwidth available and the only reason we have limited data plans is because they’ve got us captured, so the carriers charge us by the data amount used.  Remember when once everyone was charged by the minutes talked and “long-distance” cost more?  Once the competitive landscape moves to “All you can binge” offerings our data-plans will disappear and something new will come along that adds a new charge.  And so we must also always be thinking about our pricing models and not getting stuck in how we do business.  If we do get stuck, then someone else will come along and put us in a reactive versus proactive mode.

I many times feel that our lives are a God-given data plan that is being expended daily, each minute of activity takings its toll on us both positively and negatively.  Unfortunately, there isn’t any “miracle plan” to purchase that extends our lives, so it us important to recognize and remember that noting in life has a “Zero-Rating”.  There is a cost associated with each of our choices. Today, as we start our work, let’s consider what those choices will be and do our best to ensure that with each set of activities that we can end the day feeling that we made the best expenditure and use of what we were allocated.

Reference: Ecclesiastes 9:6 (New Living Translation)