narenl

The U.S consumer benefits regardless. if the German taxpayer or German customer of a monopoly subsidizes the U.S consumer that is a German market issue.

Your second point has some merit though: that once they gain significant market share in the U.S, T-mobile can become anti-customer. But T-mobile's prepaid plans and now this international texting gambit might force other carriers to follow suit before T-mobile gets to that significant market share. At that point T-mobile cannot afford to become anti-customer because other carriers would have started matching T-mobile's pro-customer offers in the meantime.

IMO This is not targeted towards individuals applying on their own.

I went to a walkabout of a similar online education company's office and asked them about the high cost for an online degree. The answer I received was

1. there is demand for this and

2. Most of the demand comes from people in the military serving in remote locations or people working inside other large organizations which foot the cost. and

3. They provide online infrastructure to courses of schools like UC-B, UNC etc and the colleges set the price so as not to dilute their "brand" because the online degree does not mention the fact that the degree was obtained online (this could have changed).

All in all, my initial shock was a bit tempered after hearing the realities involving all 3 parties : the school, the student and the online enabler.

I second that. I do not know him personally but I've spoken to him at a Product meetup in NYC and came away impressed by his level-headedness, tenacity and willingness to share what he had learnt the hard way. I've been following his blog since then.