One of the things, I love, love, love about technology is what it can do for people who don’t have a lot of money. Yes, computers are expensive, but new web savvy devices cost less than a desktop computer or laptop used to, and the price of laptops also continues to fall. You need an email address? It’s free. Phone number? Google voice is free as are lots of Google apps you can access for free and store lots of documents, also for free. Skype provides not only audio, video, and IM chat, it does so with strong encryption. Even PayPal will let you set up an account for free assuming you have a bank account you can link it to.
But now come Line2. It costs $1. More from the New York Times:
For a little $1 iPhone app, Line2 sure has the potential to shake up an entire industry. It can save you money. It can make calls where AT&T’s signal is lousy, like indoors. It can turn an iPod Touch into a full-blown cellphone. And it can ruin the sleep of cellphone executives everywhere.
Line2 gives your iPhone a second phone number — a second phone line, complete with its own contacts list, voicemail, and so on. …
Line2 also turns the iPhone into a dual-mode phone. That is, it can make and receive calls either using the AT&T airwaves as usual, or — now this is the best part — over the Internet. Any time you’re in a wireless hot spot, Line2 places its calls over Wi-Fi instead of AT&T’s network.
Now Line2 does include a $10/month subscription, but even with that if you spend a lot of time in the warm embrace of a wi-fi network, this can save you some serious cash. Could it replace a cell phone altogether? Not if (for example) you keep a cell phone in case of emergency when you need to communicate outside a wi-fi zone. But it might well be worth it, especially if you switch your regular cell phone to a pay-as-you-go plan. You can also use Google Voice to give both your Line2 and regular cell phone a common number.
And you get to make some cell phone executives sweat.
You mention some wonderful services that are available for free, or for next to nothing. I’d like to add to the list the music site Pandora.com, and for e-reading, the combination of the Kindle-for PC/Mac/Android/iPhone as well as the e-book content site Gutenberg.org. With Pandora.com you can listen to a wonderful array of music that meets your individual tastes – kind of like your own personal radio station, with minimal commercial interruption. As for the Kindle app for PC/Mac/etc, it provides an e-reader for a variety of platforms and you can download a huge assortment of free texts from the Project Gutenberg site. The great news is that all the above cost no money. Heck, if you want to spend money, you can always purchase Kindle editions of many books from Amazon – an actual Kindle device is not necessary.