No Top Up, Thanks. I’m way beyond that.

When operators came up with the idea of topup accounts - or pay-as-you-go, as they say in all the right places, we all jumped in total euphoria and exclaimed “Whoopie-Doo!”. What we really meant was: “Here is a cool way for me to run around with three mobile accounts, therefore piling up the free-texts, and living the life of almost zero mobile costs”. The downside was to mess about with three different mobile numbers, sim cards, chargers and so forth. Why, oh why is it always so hard to save a penny or two? Happy- hour at the pub, Orange-Wednesday at the cinema, two-for-one and all the rest of it.

Why do we feel that this top-up business is not for us anymore?

Quite simply, because this type of account pricing was invented in 1999, when we were thirteen, and nowadays, we are all in our early twenties, and some of us in our first job. What we want is better tariffs at affordable prices, not pricing schemes that make us feel all weird at the newstand, as if we had just moved into the UK from a far away country where the telephone lines are still analogue and we have to pay with coins at the telephone booths. Not now, that we feel pretty good about ourselves, we can finally kick about getting paid - though minimally - by our first employer, and the opposite sex talks to us in a bar because we are interesting, if not coolly chilled and with good vibes. Just when being young is what makes us all super-special…. Society should reward us better for that, isn’t it?

Blyk got that, and hence worked up a way to match the economic need of this generation with some real sense of self-respect. Just because I get minimal salary because I am young, does not mean I need to go through the “top up the SIM card” process at a kiosk.

I’m not trying to be cheap here. I’m not trying to dodge the system. I just want to feel that being a student or a first-time jobber does not kill my mojo when I hit the streets and I run out of credit on my phone and have to run into a shop to keep my life connected…

Are you with me?

Entry Filed under: Consumer Rant