[Sleeep]

People on prepaid or pay as you go plans don't get unlimited minutes. You can't really just dismiss this segment of the population. It's a bit like saying "coffee is a free beverage for everyone because most offices provide coffee for employees."

[YCode]

I suspect people on extremely limited plans know to screen their calls or manage in some way.

If not that is unfortunate but hardly justification to upend cellular calling because a few people paid $0.10 / minute extra answering calls from spammers.

There are advantages and disadvantages to those types of plans, and that is one of the disadvantages.

[kelnos]

Sure I can. Many pre-paid plans also offer unlimited minutes, and even in the case of those that don't, you can absolutely just choose not to answer the phone if you don't recognize the number, or just flat-out don't feel like answering.

Look, I get that the US is different in that it charges for incoming calls, and that's weird to you. That's fine. I think it's weird that Spanish people voluntarily let themselves be chased by enraged bulls, but hey, I let people choose the risks they want to take[1]. Would I prefer free things over not-free things? Sure. But that's the model that US carriers chose, and, absent government regulation to the contrary, it's absolutely their right to choose that model. And I honestly just don't care enough about it to lobby the gov't to change those regulations, and it seems that a majority of Americans feel the same way, so... so what?

[1] Modulo unethical treatment of the bulls themselves, but that's another issue.

[rhcom2]

As far as I know all of Verizon's prepaid plans offer unlimited talk and text.