512
Cable company logic: "Our predatory anti-consumer practices are really pro-consumer"
(discuss.tchncs.de)
Will anyone actually buy this argument?
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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Seeing this episode when it came out vs in 2023 really hit different. It never dawned on me how finely honed their comedy was that season.
Which episode is that?
Basic Cable
South Park: Season 23, Episode 9
I’d like to think that this is all some massive gambit by the FCC to get all these assholes on record so they can build some massive RICO case to take them all down in a massive price fixing and defrauding scheme.
But I am high right now.
Believe it or not, the same study actually said giving me a million dollars is also a good thing
I accidentally send you 2 million could you please send back 1 million?
How many gift cards is that?
WHY DO YOU REDEEM
please take in your hand a pen and a piece of paper
please be in front of your computer right now
If you do not pay us the IRS, we will put you under the rest.
You will be behind the bars!
Omg I got one a few months ago from the "Medicare Police". Most hilarious stuff I've heard in a long time.
Me, the cable company: "If you don't let me charge people an assortment of fines and fees after they've signed up for service, then I'll increase our base rate before they sign up."
Consumers, looking at the high price of cable: "Fuck, I can't afford this. Guess I won't sign up."
Me, the cable company: "Regulations are destroying my business!!!"
Right? Gosh forbid we stop them from tricking people into spending money they don't have. That would be un-American.
CW: DV >!"we'll have to raise prices if early termination fees are banned" has a real "look how you made me hurt you" abuser vibe.!<
I'm imagining the logic is something like "predatory fees generate $xx million in revenue a year, so if we lose that revenue source we will have to put our other fees up to compensate, because as a multi-billion dollar company our shareholders will get all butthurt if our profit drops by a fraction of a percentage point next year"
Only if they buy the argument that it's too difficult to explain what the hidden charges are for so they shouldn't have to.
"See when I slap you in the face that's actually a really nice thing of me to do. Because if I don't slap you in the face I'd kick you in the groin really hard instead. Do you want to get kicked in the groin? No? That's what I thought."
Cable companies say they'll will raise the price without early termination fees? Oh please. They'll do that whether there's early termination fees or not. They're just threatening to bump it up on the schedule.
"Early termination fees are good because without them, we will just do something worse."
Which is better because then they are being upfront about the charges, and more people can tell them to fuck off.
Something better, as the price would be overt and transparent rather than arbitrary and hidden.
Yes, Republicans.
What are these Cable TV companies smoking? I want some!
high grade monopoly is a tough habit to kick
Oh look. The "We'll hurt people a different way if you stop us from hurting them this way!" argument.
I wonder who else has made that argument? Oh yeah the Mafia and Cartels.
Thanks for adding the link to the article, but it might be more convenient if you also add the link to the post description.
Currently this comment is showing up at the bottom of the thread for me.
Fair! I intended to have it in the original post but it didn't take. Likely my error.
Cable companies "We'll raise monthly prices if you ban termination fees"
Lol, they're going to raise them anyway!
CEO's always think in quarters, they said "we don't raise monthly prices (in this quarter) if you don't ban termination fees"
Early termination fees are not that horrible. They can give you a monthly cost where some of the costs for installing it might be distributed over they contact period. Fine and ok
But i should still be able to cancel my contract without jumping through 11 loops and queues.
If you sign up for a given contract, that's what you have agreed upon. It sucks if you only have one option and they can set a ridiculous price. So if you want to regulate pricing, that's a different matter. Cancelling is something else altogether.
What costs to install equipment? Most homes are already wired for their services. The lines they roll out to new users are usually subsidized by taxes and running coax into a house is not that expensive.
Doesn't stop them from charging.
You mean the installation which was provided for free as a “limited special offer” for new members but is actually already accounted for in the price?
If you sign up for a given contract
Listen, it says clear as day down here in the fine print that I get a pound of flesh closest to your heart. I don't see what you're complaining about, a contract is a contract.
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early termination fees for anything are complete made up bullshit
Yar har, fiddle de dee!
You know what's also nice? Bribes to the regulating officials. Junkets. Free samples. Fancy dinners. Golf games. Promises of no-show jobs if their political career tanks.
Some doctors gladly overprescribe opioids (or bad SSRIs like Seroquel) for a few free lunches from a pharma spokesperson hottie.
People with political power are cheap.
It's why the rest of us have that lean and hungry look.
You know, I can't speak for the baby bells or other industries and definitely not politicos, but I've never understood that conspiracy theory about doctors getting money from Big Pharma. I by no means endorse Skrelli bros but I've been a doctor for a decade and while I do take advantage of free lunches whenever I can get them, I just prescribe what I want to and I don't get any money whenever I do so. Most of the time I just heckle the company throughout the lunch and don't use their product. Seroquel helps a lot of people and while I don't prescribe it, it's basically the Kleenex or Scotch tape of antidepressants and nobody gets any special kick backs when they write it, they know their patients are just getting it from India over the internet anyway or CVS/DR/Walgreens/Rite Aid just swaps it for the generic. inb4 studies showing slight biases towards companies you got a free pen from, I still don't get any kickbacks. No matter what I do the fake blonde with fake nails and lashes shows up faithfully to get my office staff Panera or Chick-fil-A. It's pennies to them and I usually skip cause I'm trying to avoid carbs.
You're not most doctors. Your a doctor. Also bribes and propaganda can affect you whether consciously or not. My own doctor of twenty years (now retired) only took pharma submissions through regular channels.
Seroquel came to mind because I personally witnessed someone who suffered from dystonia as a side effect of Seroquel, months before the class action that the side effect was understated (or misrepresented) when it was being tested for FDA approval.
That said, the lunches-for-overprescription pattern was discovered and highlighted during investigations into the opioid epidemic in the United States, in which, yes, a lot of lunches were bought by Purdue pharmacy representatives, and yes, a lot of correlating doctors over-presribed OxyContin, and whether or not it's a matter of neglect, laziness or willful malice to exploit the inflated medical market and poor Americans, the opioid crisis continues to this day, with 109,600 Americans dying from opioid overdoses in 2023.
I can cite plenty of other industries in which good press is bought and regulatory departments are captured with bribes, in pay or in kind. I'm personally familiar with the game industry and photography industry. But I can't help but be bitter about the medical industry, having seen the effects of bad medicine on friends and family, when not experiencing it personally.
I would hope someone with your education would understand the difference between data and an anecdote. For the record we aren't even mad at most doctors. We're mad at the Pharma industry for introducing such corruption to our medical system.
Not like there's a parallel market in cell phone contracts before and after T-Mobile's branding as an 'uncarrier' to showcase that this is complete bullshit or anything...
Getting yourself involved with a cable company is worse than borrowing money from your local waste management representative. Easy to get in, impossible to get out.
those who are lobbied will buy whatever argument they are paid to buy.
_ /\ _
Yes, eliminating a revenue source in one area means they will just price for it elsewhere.
a threat that doesn't pass even the slightest sniff test, any significant raise in prices would leave them open for a competitor to undercut them.
For what I understand, a lot of places in US have only a single provider available, so no competition. And when towns try to run their own broadband infrastructure they get sued by Internet companies.
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Yet another problem the free market will surely solve aaaaany minute now.
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