If Your Cable Company Were Honest, This Is What Its Commercial Would Look Like
from the well-done dept
You may have already seen this, as it seems to be getting passed around everywhere this morning, but for those of you with actual important stuff to do all day, you may have missed this amusing mock cable company commercial from what Extremely Decent Films has dubbed "The First Honest Cable Company." It is marginally NSFW depending on your work environment and their likelihood of being offended by a the occasional swear word or vague reference to a sexual act.You'll have the option of choosing from several of our completely unwarranted ripoffs, including internet speeds almost 200 times slower than Korea... at twice the price. TV packages with over 500 channels, 90% of which you can't view and we guarantee a plethora of hidden fees. Then our barely trained technicians will come to install your service somewhere between the hours 8am and 10 pm, knock once while you're in the shower, and promptly leave.... Why you ask? We're part of what is called an "oligopoly." It's like a monopoly... only legal!Good stuff.
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Filed Under: cable companies, oligopoly, truth in advertising
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very funny, fortunately doesn't fit my experience
I'm the 1%
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Re: very funny, fortunately doesn't fit my experience
Not to rub it in, but I'm pretty sure my ISP hasn't agreed to the 6-strikes plan either, so there's that. I've also not noticed any filtering (I got some amazing speeds on a couple of linux distro torrents).
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Re: Re: very funny, fortunately doesn't fit my experience
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Re: very funny, fortunately doesn't fit my experience
"Happy" may or may not be the same thing as "knowledgeable consumer perceives good value and exceptional product at a reasonable and justified cost".
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Re: very funny, fortunately doesn't fit my experience
I showed my modem stats to a Comcast tech and he said that he's surprised that I even get internet at all.
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Re: very funny, fortunately doesn't fit my experience
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Wouldn't matter if it wasn't sluggish. By the time it started streaming, I'd be on the phone, again, bitching why their cheap ass modem requires me to unplug it for 2 minutes to fix the problem.
"Bob" is always nice, but I'd wish he'd quick drinking on the job. He sounds like he's from India. He's always helpful, going down the same 10 checklist items only to discover my original question isn't covered and puts me in touch with... technical support. I thought that's who I called.
But the jokes on them! I save myself the price of a stamp each month by sending my payment via my online bank and force them to send me a paper copy invoice!
I know, I'm evil, but I've learned from the best!
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Okay, so regulate the hell out of them!
I'm glad to see Mike recognizing obliquely monopoly as bad: "t's like a monopoly... only legal!". -- Now, if can just get him to see that BAD is always associated with BIG...
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Re: Okay, so regulate the hell out of them!
Once again Blue, who gets to decide what is considered "too big" for a corporation? You?
And what are you gonna do to stop them? Penalize them for being too successful?
To put your wacko notions in simpler terms:
Force the farmer to prune his apple trees to keep them from getting "too big" because the may block out some of the sunlight. Of course, what you are left with is scrawny sticks in the ground that neither produce fruit nor provide shade.
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Re: Re: Okay, so regulate the hell out of them!
The Randroids always show up with that particular strawman when anyone starts talking about curbing corporate abuses. Sane people understand the truth, though. No one wants to penalize success; but people taking success and abusing it, turning it into economic exploitation, does need to be penalized strenuously if you want to maintain a healthy society.
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Re: Okay, so regulate the hell out of them!
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Re: Okay, so regulate the hell out of them!
Here's a link to the discussion:
http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2013-February/thread.html
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Re: Okay, so regulate the hell out of them!
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Re: Okay, so regulate the hell out of them!
The infrastructure should be a public utility. Then ISPs should be able to compete to offer service. Then the PUC could make sure the infrastructure is maintained properly and charged for fairly, and competition will take care of the rest.
I think that would solve most of the problems we have. It would be great if it could all be solved with competition, but the wires are a natural monopoly, so we have to find some other way to deal with that. Duopoly, which we've chosen so far, is obviously terrible. While we're living in fantasy land, how could we ensure new technology is adopted to keep improving our internet services?
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Netflix Should Hire These People For Marketing
It's only a matter of time before the legacy companies run out of lobbying funds, but it's a hard wait when you know it's coming, but the government just helps them continue to limp along.
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"profit" doesn't just have to be for shareholders. It could be excess employee compensation, excess CEO and other executive compensation, excess administrative costs that ultimately do unfairly benefit someone. Not just net profit as in shareholder profits.
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Coming from an AC I will just take this as your unsourced opinion, which holds very little weight. Techdirt at least has references that can be traced back to non-anonymous sources.
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Ready. Set. Disruption.
Once a few years of Google Fiber numbers come in, new businesses (read Copy Cats... (Read Pirates.... Read dirty thieves))) will leverage Google's business model as a "proven model" to secure loans from investors and will deploy similar solutions in other areas the country.
Once these startups hit a high enough percentage market share the big ISPs will have to compete (probably only in those areas) or buy out these smaller companies... Both have their headaches, buyouts require will gov't approval, and competing is a new concept to them.
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Re: Ready. Set. Disruption.
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Re: Ready. Set. Disruption.
They started out well, Gmail having more space than everyone else (and everyone else had to consequently improve their service and offer more space), Google Search, Youtube, etc... They came out with a nice Google 411 service that was nice until it disappeared. What now? I don't see very much.
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They can be the ones who demand quarterly profits rather than long-term strategy.
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Funny, but not so true in my case
Just a happy customer who thinks it's unfair for my company to be painted with the same broad brush, when they are doing pretty good if you ask me.
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Re: Funny, but not so true in my case
Then tell us how much you're paying and then compare that info to costs in other, and for some strange fucking reason, better connected countries.
Same provider and I have 5.7 download and 0.97 upload.. 5, 10, 20 and now 35 you say?
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Re: Re: Funny, but not so true in my case
Like Lithuania and Uruguay. OK maybe not Uruguay but you get my point.
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Very good
Think for a second..IF CABLE corps got together, they could FORCE the Channels into being CHEAP. IF the Channels wanted ACCESS to customers they have FEW choices.
They can install Antenna towers across the nation.
OR Send a SAT signal that Cable/sat could use, to sell to customers.
There has to be a BIG SAT up there for all the channels. THINK of the CRAP TV you get to watch, all those channels that VERY few watch, and are still on.
dont worry about the complaints that its EXPENSIVE to send signals to SAT's..they get PAID for commercials. And trying to setup Antennas around the USA to get to customers is Much more expensive..
Do I have to mention SUBSIDIES? Much of the fiber is getting PAID for by YOU. In 1 form or another. YOU PAID FOR IT. At least 10 times over.
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Re: Very good
I think you under estimate what fiber costs. I will be paying for a good ten years before I pay mine off. And that leaves nothing for the operating expenses incurred during that time.
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Re: Re: Very good
you mean when they control the Movie, the commercials, Access to shows, making the movies/shows, The cable corps and the sat companies??
And if you could PROVE they are all linked they could be fined? for something like 1% of gross?
That 7 corps control about 80% of the worlds broadcast channels??
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Very good
They are all 1 single group..at least controlled as a group.
All the money goes the SAME way..UP.
Why do you think Cable/sat charge you for channels you DONT WATCH..an the cable/sat companies have NO WAY to take them out?
I dont watch the sports channels, but have to PAY for them..
The FCC has been TRYING to get ala carte channels for years.
Cable STARTED with bunched channels..you paid for the EXTRA. You got BASIC channels for $20. no sports, no religious, no THIS/THAT/OTHER.. NOW you pay as much as THEN, but get TONS of garbage you dont watch..and PAY MORE..
IN THE OLD DAYS..
Basic channels..$20
HBO..$10(2-4 more channels)
Show time $10(2-6 channels)
ESPN $20 (4 channels).
and so forth..
NOW you pay for ESPN...EVERYONE pays for ESPN even if they dont watch it.
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Why is everybody suddenly..
Most of these read like crappy spam.
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Tech Support
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Re: Tech Support
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I wished! In my area I'm lucky to be offered over 100 channels. Dish and DirectTV offer more, but not 500.
Then our barely trained technicians will come to install your service
Every installer I've seen in my area is a contractor and NOT an employee of the cable co. I've seen several do both cable and dish installations. And yes, I've seen some "barely trained".
Make 'em public utilities
In my area the cable co had to get a charter from the city, just like a utility. The bad news is that neither the city nor the state regulates the rates they charge.
And the city won't grant multiple charters because the companies don't want to share the same cable/fiber/infrastructure, etc.
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Re:
And there's the problem.
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Here is our fastest internet but unless you are buying unlimited those videos will eat it right up also you can get tv package but in a month if it stops working we will give you a new ome for free and a free pvr and we will tell you we suck but you will stay because we gove free stuff
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Truth in Business?
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Re: Truth in Business?
FTFY
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So true
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In fact the service is so much better by our local provider that when they moved into town (from one town over) they have all but ran Time Warner out of this town. That after about 30+ years of a total monopoly TW had here where they charged 3x the price than they did 10 miles away.
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Ha!
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Cable Company Video
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The more things change...
http://rutube.ru/video/fd2be09caaf7b0aaa396f23e9ac7
Now I live in Japan. I have a fiber to the home connection with synchronous 100mbit speeds for $40 a month. Too bad Japanese TV is so bad though.
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Re: The more things change...
404 error.
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