There are some cases, say in the gawdawful frozen tundra that is north of the Brooks Range, where I frequently have signal with no data, as it is evidently impossible to get "teh tubes" to run past the Arctic Circle. There, texting is essential to staying in touch with anything resembling a civilzation. Well, that or to switch over to GCI, which has data. Nevermind.

Capitalism only cares about competition until you have enough money to BUY the competition. Then it's katy-bar-the-door (see: AT&T and T-Mobile).

I feel like Twitter was an ill conceived attempt to merge email with texting and lost the convenient features of both, but somehow manages to capture our diminished attention spans long enough to entertain us while we wait in elevators and to order drinks at dinner.

Finally, I wouldn't have any personal experience here, but I believe Grindr requires you pay to use push notifications. Otherwise, that shit will consume your battery like I consume red velvet cupcakes (or, perhaps, ping that server like I pinged someone's mom last night. Take your pick).