One lesson I learned the hard way.

[Munshi Prem Chand]

...

Stories about “easy money” dont exactly end on a happy note.
Success stories dont come with a neat package and rarely present you with the whole truth.
Recharge system of 28 days continued for many years because people were fine with it. Its only when things affected people that TRAI intervened. People tend to not question anything unless it affects them.
Greed is a human failing and its made worse with the never ending stories of “easy money”.

[pawanjain]

Greed is one of the major reasons. And this is not limited to Indians, this is the tendency of humans in general. Also, with so many success stories being talked about, the temptation is there even after falling prey to such traps.

A significant number of those success stories are fabricated. Those who have been successful will need political connections. Then some entrepreneurs copy a US product and become successful. One of the biggest scams that has been normalized in India is the 28 days recharge. People still pay for those recharges without questioning the companies, why?

Because these companies are the biggest donors to the ruling political party. If the TRAI cannot question the recharge pack, then it means it is not getting pressure from the people. But when they got pressurised, they asked these companies to come up with recharge plans that do not include a data pack.

The tendency of human behavior is to be suppressed by those in power. When suppressed, a person will always find a way to escape that suppression and seek to gain power themselves. That is why humans are greedy, as they believe money is power.

Recharge plans indeed feels like a scam. I miss those 10 rupees recharges where we can keep the sim active, make calls as well as send messages.
These days when the plan is expired we have to spend at least 200+ just to get to send sms. They are completely robbing the middle class.
Even the no data plan was just recently launched. Earlier, even the people whose phone didn't support 4g still had to pay for 5g data packs.

[Cointikka]

Recharge plans indeed feels like a scam. I miss those 10 rupees recharges where we can keep the sim active, make calls as well as send messages.
These days when the plan is expired we have to spend at least 200+ just to get to send sms. They are completely robbing the middle class.
Even the no data plan was just recently launched. Earlier, even the people whose phone didn't support 4g still had to pay for 5g data packs.

I have a JIO sim on my second phone. It works for six months without recharge; I mean, incoming SMS & calls. It is still working, but I have never used an INR 10 recharge. My elder friends/collegues have told me that there was a time in India when INR 10 was enough to get a liter of petrol. That shows how inflation has depreciated the INR & why Bitcoin was created.

[eaLiTy]

~
I have a JIO sim on my second phone. It works for six months without recharge; I mean, incoming SMS & calls. It is still working, but I have never used an INR 10 recharge. My elder friends/collegues have told me that there was a time in India when INR 10 was enough to get a liter of petrol. That shows how inflation has depreciated the INR & why Bitcoin was created.

Are you sure that you will not lose your SIM if you do not recharge it for more than three months? I will try to see next time around whether incoming calls remain available, as I had no idea that was possible with a Jio SIM past the regular grace period.

Regarding the price of petrol and diesel, during the early '90s, it was below 10 rupees. When I owned my first vehicle, the price of petrol was around 26 rupees and diesel was around 18 rupees. During my college days, I used to travel a lot, and filling up petrol or diesel would not hurt your pocket much. But now, you can feel the difference even on short trips. I actually sympathize with the current generation of youngsters, as they cannot have that care free life unless their parents give them good pocket money.

[pawanjain]

~
I have a JIO sim on my second phone. It works for six months without recharge; I mean, incoming SMS & calls. It is still working, but I have never used an INR 10 recharge. My elder friends/collegues have told me that there was a time in India when INR 10 was enough to get a liter of petrol. That shows how inflation has depreciated the INR & why Bitcoin was created.

Are you sure that you will not lose your SIM if you do not recharge it for more than three months? I will try to see next time around whether incoming calls remain available, as I had no idea that was possible with a Jio SIM past the regular grace period.

Regarding the price of petrol and diesel, during the early '90s, it was below 10 rupees. When I owned my first vehicle, the price of petrol was around 26 rupees and diesel was around 18 rupees. During my college days, I used to travel a lot, and filling up petrol or diesel would not hurt your pocket much. But now, you can feel the difference even on short trips. I actually sympathize with the current generation of youngsters, as they cannot have that care free life unless their parents give them good pocket money.

Even I thought that the grace period to keep the sim under our name is only about 3 months post which the registration is deactivated and in some days the number gets allotted to some other person.
I had faced a similar situation with my previous number, not sure for how many months it was idle but it was long enough for sure, then it got transferred to someone else but my sim was Airtel.
Anyway, I didn't use that number much and so I was fine with that but sometimes I feel that paying money just to keep the sim under our name feels like paying ransom.