Ahh yes -- our lovely system of unregulated capitalism hard at work:
They say two wrongs don't make a right, and consumers are about to get proof of that with the merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable.
The $45 billion merger announced Thursday might be a win for both companies, but it will be no victory for their combined 30 million customers, who are already among the least-happy customers in all of Corporate America.
The two companies last year were the lowest-scoring cable companies in the American Customer Satisfaction Index, mainly because of the weakness of their customer service. That made them the least-loved companies in one of the least-loved industries for customer satisfaction. The only two industries with worse customer-satisfaction ratings, according to Consumerist, are newspapers and internet providers. By the way, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are also internet providers.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/13/comcast-time-warner-merger-customers_n_4780438.html
Yes, because as we all know, whenever these huge monopoly creating mergers take place, the end result ALWAYS is that the consumer ultimately benefits by fairer pricing, better service and a broader range of service options. Right? Right?? And if you believe that dear reader, you are truly living in a world of delusion. No - seriously - if you believe this merger is a good thing for anyone but the investor class, please run to the nearest toilet, shove your head in to the bowl and flush repeatedly.
The Gadfly his self is on the cusp of eliminating cable television from his life completely and simply keeping a lower speed DSL phone line for internet access only. This decision came on the heels of his local cable television provider hiking his bundled service (internet, phone & cable) fees by 20% without notice and the service is still just as shitty. And don't even bother to get The Gadfly started on the satellite cable providers - they are just as criminally overpriced and devoid of anything resembling customer service as the traditional cable companies are. And besides, of the vaunted 300 channels that The Gadfly gets on his cable, there might be a total of 5 or 6 channels that The Gadfly views with any measure of regularity. Therefore, why should The Gadfly keep forking over dough to the cable monopolies for those other 295 channels that he has absolutely no interest in viewing, but was forced to settle for just because they came along with the package that The Gadfly's favorite channels happened to be grouped in? It's fucking highway robbery and The Gadfly isn't going to buy their shit any more.
The Gadfly acknowledges that his little purchasing power protest doesn't amount to even a fart in the wind in the big scheme of things, but you have to start some place. At minimum, it will put an xtra $100 of The Gadfly's hard-earned income back in to his pocket every month - cash that could be better spent on other leisure activities which don't require one to mind-meld with their E-Z Boy recliner for wasted hours on end.
Here are a couple of good books analyzing the deleterious effects that these huge telecom and media mergers are having on our culture and our democracy:
http://www.amazon.com/Captive-Audience-Telecom-Industry-Monopoly/dp/0300205708/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392313922&sr=1-1&keywords=captive+audience
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Disconnect-Capitalism-Internet-Democracy/dp/1595588671/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392313922&sr=1-2&keywords=captive+audience
----TFG
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