I paid Another.com for a number of email addresses for over seven years. I was perfectly happy to keep paying them. But...
They were bought over by UK2.net, and announced that all payments in future had to be through a physical cheque or postal order, "with a note attached saying which account was being renewed", posted to a London address. (!!!)
They had no means of accepting electronic payments. I'm registered disabled and have no current cheque book. I certainly have no intention of crossing town to stand in a long queue to buy a postal order, just to keep a company that appears to be circling the drain afloat.
I emailed their support site and explained this. They emailed me back and said that they would, as a "gesture of goodwill", extend my account by two months until they could accept electronic payments. Then they closed all their incoming email addresses, (they never *did* have a 'phone number) emailed a sequence of final demands for a physical payment and a week later closed my account.
That killed off three email addresses I used regularly, and about a dozen I used occasionally. Oh and two-thirds of a box of "calling cards".
Now their website says "There's a sparkling new Another.com under way!" - yeah, right.
I suppose the point of this rant is that even when you *pay* for a long-established account, circumstances can force you to lose it.
Many of the arguments in favour of this run along the lines of "It costs me $50 a month to get 100 channels, so that works out at $0.50 per channel - why not just let me pay $5 a month for the ten channels I actually watch?"
But that's not how it works. It probably costs, say, $30 a month for the infrastructure to get the cable to you, box rental etc. along with a reasonable profit for the providers. (After all, if they didn't make a reasonable profit, why would they bother doing it?)
So, for the sake of simplicity, lets assume for the moment that all channels cost the same to the provider. That would mean that when you were getting 100 channels they would be costing you 20 cents each after you removed the cost of getting them to you. Ten channels would thus cost you $2, plus overheads, or $32 a month instead of the $50 a month you pay for 100 channels. That's without any form of "channel subsidies".
So, instead of apparently paying $0.50 per channel, it suddenly looks like you are being charged $3.20 per channel. Everybody gets up in arms and the class action lawsuits start.
My suggestion: Every package should be bundled with a mandatory "Remedial economics channel". :-)
A NASA official was just interviewed on More4 news, and the gist was that if one astronaut turns up smelling of alcohol it's probably simpler to get the others to cover for him through the launch until he's finished sobering up than to spend the (literally) millions of dollars canceling and rescheduling the launch. Of course she didn't admit that this had actually happened, she was just speculating what might have happened.
Ironically, if you had bought a bootleg DVD, it probably would have had the music you remembered, and you would thus have been happier. Chalk another "win" up to the RIAA.
Besides, with the crap Hollywood puts out totday, would YOU want to own a theater?
Yes. Yes I would.
But I wouldn't show movies in it.
Based on comments above about how movie theatres have become de-facto social networking locations, I would go the whole hog. Charge $10 for a "day ticket", show pop videos and promos on a continuous stream and bring back the old-style "usherette" as a combination walking shop and chaperrone, turning it into a safe central venue for kids to meet up and misbehave. I'd still be getting the door receipts; they'd still be buying the overpriced burgers and Coke (or risk being thrown out and their ticket confiscated for bringing in their own food) but I wouldn't have the overheads of actually paying for the movies.
In fact, the screen would become a net revenue stream, with record labels and advertisers paying me to place their product in front of teen and pre-teen* eyes.
(*If the theatre was a multiplex I would split it between pre-teen, with lots of adult supervision, early teen and older, each being shown content that was age-appropriate...)
Another reason why the "Multiplex Experience" is poor, from my POV.
I used to work in the TV industry, and if I've really enjoyed a movie I like to sit through the credits to see who was responsible for providing my enjoyment. Unfortunately, in my local multiplex, even if you manage to run down the steps and stand at the front somewhere there won't be people blocking your view by sauntering to the exit as the credits start to roll, the operators will fade up the house lights and stop the credits prematurely as soon as 2/3rds of the people have left, presumably so they can let the next "house" in sooner and show more ads. I prefer DVD any day.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong... 4:53 is pretty much exactly the time you want to look up a couple of websites before you can go home. Time is critical, and pretty much the last thing you want is any sort of delay.
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On the post: Should There Be Mandatory Email Address Portability?
Even *paid* accounts can die...
They were bought over by UK2.net, and announced that all payments in future had to be through a physical cheque or postal order, "with a note attached saying which account was being renewed", posted to a London address. (!!!)
They had no means of accepting electronic payments. I'm registered disabled and have no current cheque book. I certainly have no intention of crossing town to stand in a long queue to buy a postal order, just to keep a company that appears to be circling the drain afloat.
I emailed their support site and explained this. They emailed me back and said that they would, as a "gesture of goodwill", extend my account by two months until they could accept electronic payments. Then they closed all their incoming email addresses, (they never *did* have a 'phone number) emailed a sequence of final demands for a physical payment and a week later closed my account.
That killed off three email addresses I used regularly, and about a dozen I used occasionally. Oh and two-thirds of a box of "calling cards".
Now their website says "There's a sparkling new Another.com under way!" - yeah, right.
I suppose the point of this rant is that even when you *pay* for a long-established account, circumstances can force you to lose it.
On the post: Class Action Lawsuit Filed By People Who Want A La Carte TV
Fixed overheads
But that's not how it works. It probably costs, say, $30 a month for the infrastructure to get the cable to you, box rental etc. along with a reasonable profit for the providers. (After all, if they didn't make a reasonable profit, why would they bother doing it?)
So, for the sake of simplicity, lets assume for the moment that all channels cost the same to the provider. That would mean that when you were getting 100 channels they would be costing you 20 cents each after you removed the cost of getting them to you. Ten channels would thus cost you $2, plus overheads, or $32 a month instead of the $50 a month you pay for 100 channels. That's without any form of "channel subsidies".
So, instead of apparently paying $0.50 per channel, it suddenly looks like you are being charged $3.20 per channel. Everybody gets up in arms and the class action lawsuits start.
My suggestion: Every package should be bundled with a mandatory "Remedial economics channel". :-)
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Yes. Yes I would.
But I wouldn't show movies in it.
Based on comments above about how movie theatres have become de-facto social networking locations, I would go the whole hog. Charge $10 for a "day ticket", show pop videos and promos on a continuous stream and bring back the old-style "usherette" as a combination walking shop and chaperrone, turning it into a safe central venue for kids to meet up and misbehave. I'd still be getting the door receipts; they'd still be buying the overpriced burgers and Coke (or risk being thrown out and their ticket confiscated for bringing in their own food) but I wouldn't have the overheads of actually paying for the movies.
In fact, the screen would become a net revenue stream, with record labels and advertisers paying me to place their product in front of teen and pre-teen* eyes.
(*If the theatre was a multiplex I would split it between pre-teen, with lots of adult supervision, early teen and older, each being shown content that was age-appropriate...)
On the post: Theater Chains Pin Their Hopes On Two Films
One other geeky comment.
I used to work in the TV industry, and if I've really enjoyed a movie I like to sit through the credits to see who was responsible for providing my enjoyment. Unfortunately, in my local multiplex, even if you manage to run down the steps and stand at the front somewhere there won't be people blocking your view by sauntering to the exit as the credits start to roll, the operators will fade up the house lights and stop the credits prematurely as soon as 2/3rds of the people have left, presumably so they can let the next "house" in sooner and show more ads. I prefer DVD any day.
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Just to be on the safe side, better stick to sites that specialise in "vintage" black-and-white porn, then.
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Flash ads at 4:53
Great plan, Coors.
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