Back in school I took econ 101 just like everyone else seems to have and although my memory of those days is getting a bit fuzzy, I seem to recall one of the main premises of economics is that as something becomes more commonplace and mass market, the cost of producing that item should, in theory, fall as more and more options exist to manufacture and purchase it. OK - perhaps it was econ 102 but you get the idea. The more of something that is available in the market the cheaper it should be.

Apparently that is not the case in the wireless market where despite all of sending over 2.5 trillion messages this year the price is actually rising from 10 cents per message to 20 cents per message (I think that works out to a 100% price increase…not bad in a recession).

From the New York Times:

“All four of the major carriers decided during the last three years to increase the pay-per-use price for messages to 20 cents from 10 cents. The decision could not have come from a dearth of business: the 2.5 trillion sent messages this year, the estimate of the Gartner Group, is up 32 percent from 2007. Gartner expects 3.3 trillion messages to be sent in 2009.”

The best thing is that the cost of delivering all those messages is nearly zero as they use bandwidth dedicated to control messages within the wireless network itself. Of course the wireless cariers are pseudo monopolies so that might have something to do with why they can get away with this but 100% price increase?!? Sounds like the fees on my checking account.

A recent article from the WSJ indicates that even in amongst all the economic doom and gloom there is evidence that retailing has truly moved online.

“While online spending was down just 2% from Nov. 1 through Christmas Eve compared with a drop of 5.5% to 8% for retail as a whole, e-commerce strength wasn’t widespread. Instead, it was clustered around several big-name Web sites such as Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Online sales were also fueled by discounts that aren’t likely to continue.”

It just goes to show that more and more people are reaching for their computer when they need to buy something. I cannot remember the last time I actually got in my car to buy something that was available online.