Its not fare to "charge both for inbound and outbound SMS!" Many communication service provider offers free inbound and outbound SMS for its customer.

Only in America, I guess. T-Mobile is the only one that has an unlimited (domestic) SMS plan, even.

Now wait a minute...you basically are saying that you would be willing to pay for the outbound at $0.20, but expect the inbound to be free! So you want the service for 50% of its current costs....who wouldn't? The pricing increases are directly related to the casual users and the desire by the carriers to get someone on their text bundles. The selling of large bundles helps reduce the inhibitions that some have in sending messages and engaging in more text campaigns. Yes, it is a bit of being a drug dealer....entice them to get hooked on SMS and then start to extract monies, but the reality is that more and more people are moving to a bundled plan which actually creates an artifical limit as to the amount of revenue a carrier can make. If everyone signed up for the $10 unlimited plans, then the carriers could not increase the revenue from Text, and therefore the actual revenue per message decreases, not increases.

The inbound fees also reduce the SPAM opportunities. When an email marketer knows that the recipient is not paying for the message, the marketer is more inclined to SPAM the subscriber as they do so effectively in Europe and Asia. Splitting the pricing for inbound and outbound SMS ensures that all players in the value chain drive the associated revenues and applies an appropriate cost for a campaign or service, irrespective of it being a Push or Pull campaign...

I don't like that I have ZERO control over a service on which I am charged. At least with a phone call, I can choose not to answer it. I cannot choose NOT to receive a text message from a particular person, other than to choose NOT to receive ANY text messages AT ALL FROM ANYONE. That's where my problem is.