In Response to K. Provost

 K Provost posed the question "Do you think that companies like Verizon should offer a conservative product and phone plan combination, or are they within their ethical rights to jack up simple phone prices to encourage buyers to increase data usage?"

I think it is within their rights to have the simple phone cost a little more if they are pushing the smartphones. Granted, it isn't smart to alienate potential customers who do not want expensive phones with a lot of data. Personally, I only need my phone to call people and remind me about dates, so a lot of data (and money) would be wasted on me buying one of those phones. Would the lack of options be enough to persuade you to switch to another company to find better ones?

Regulation

"Do you believe self regulation is more or less effective than governmental regulatory agencies?  Why?"

I don't believe that the self regulation is as effective as government regulatory agencies. Most organizations tend to act in their own interest, so if there wasn't any rules set by an entity outside of the organization, many would continue harmful practices towards the environment and/or people. Such an example of this is that of the minimum wage. While there are some critics of minimum of wage say that raising the minimum wage will make companies go offshore but the minimum wage isn't even sufficient for one to support themselves living alone. One can imagine the wage that less than scrupulous companies would pay without these laws in place given that some companies exploit cheaper labor elsewhere. Do you think that companies in general would take advantage of  no minimum wage in place to lower costs?