I moved to San Francisco, I wanted to base my career on where the world's computing is centered. I could have stayed in the UK and always been on the periphery, but felt that since my first love was technology, rather than good beer or tea, I just moved where the action is.

If you find it annoying, move.

Visas can make that difficult, though. You can't just pack up your bags and move in many cases.

> rather than good beer or tea

I don't know what exactly you're drinking, but there's plenty of good beer and tea in SF and other large US cities.

I understand where you're coming from but no user should have to move country to get improved internet services. The internet is global and the services on it should be also. Did you think about staying in the UK and trying to address problems like this yourself (you would actually be better positioned to do so there)? [serious question]

I was told skype phones were pretty big in the UK. Is that not the case? I talked to someone on skype while he was on the bus (or so he told me)

one of the networks sells with it as a selling point, or you can install the app. In London buses have decent bandwidth.

Isn't it extremely hard to get a visa to move to the US from the UK? What was your experience with that like?

If someone were going to be in SFO anyway, then this is an advantage for him.

On the other hand, for a person with significant ties to London (or other city or region in Europe) - family, career, lifestyle, whatever - it seems a bit much to move to the US because you get cheaper phone calls.

Other things being equal, I can't imagine that anyone would move from London to San Francisco because of free Gmail phone calls. (It reads like your comment is precisely about other things not being equal.)

I like this response. I often give the same response to people who ask me why I moved to the US. All I get is cold stares and jingoistic statements.

For cases where you're calling the US (admittedly probably not too often if you live in the UK) you can use the free app Talkatone (available on both iOS and Android). It's super useful if you're an American traveling abroad: just find WiFi (or a local data SIM card) and you can call all your peepz back home.