Livre d'Or

Many years ago I read a thing about market research into phone plans, that claimed that American were exceptionally averse to metered services, compared to other developed countries. I filed that away in my head. I'm not in a position to be able to compare, for myself, Americans' and other nationalities' service buying behavior, but I can say I've run into aversion to pay-as-you-go services in clinical discussions. Most recently, a patient of mine volunteered how he went from a pre-paid phone to a contract one because he found knowing a meter was running discouraged him from using the phone (this was clinically relevant because anxiety disorder). And he's a wicked smart guy who knows perfectly well he's probably ultimately paying more on a plan, but is willing to do that not to have the stress of a meter.

Having heard this interesting datum about Americans, I challenged myself on that score, and have a pre-paid metered cell phone for work. It's still hard for me to make myself use it instead of some other phone. In a great example of stubborn irrationality, I found myself opting to use my contract personal phone for discretionary text messages instead of my business one even though I was winding up paying overage fees on my contract phone. I think I'm getting over that. Do other cultures not have this problem?