🚀 go-pugleaf

orionwa <badaddress@nospam.com> writes:
> Joe Chung wrote:
>> They're doing nothing more than raising prices. Surprised?  I
>> have yet to see a business that does NOT raise prices over
>> time.
> 
> Take a look at long distance rates; they have been dropping for
> years. I'm getting 4 cents/minute with no monthly fee. How
> about computers?  The original IBM PC was about $4000 in 1981.
> Take a look at what you can get now for under $1000!  You've
> never seen prices drop on anything? How about color TV's.  Take
> the original price of a color TV back in the 60's, adjust it
> for inflation and compare to today's prices.

Long distance rates have been subjected to competition, and
serious competition only recently.  They used to be higher when Ma
Bell was one big company.

There are many more services out there where prices have not come
down, even in the face of "competition", like college tuition,
legal fees, or medical costs.

In the case of a monopolistic cable TV company, a better
comparison would be the telephone, gas, electricity company,
i.e. other monopolistic utilities that provide a continuous (and
sometimes essential) service.

As for the TV and computer itself, electronic items have been
subjected to both the forces of great leaps in advancement and
steep competition over the years.

And yet there are prices of mundane consumer items, like stamps,
grocery bills, haircuts, etc. that counters the technology
examples.

Maybe the dish TV companies will give some serious competition to
the Cable companies, and then the prices may come down.

>> Why is it a threat?  It's no different than sucking people in
>> with low introductory prices and then raising the prices after
>> the introductory period.  They're just offering a bribe to you
>> to keep your lower rate.
>
> What they are doing matches the dictionary definition of a
> threat.  Look it up for yourself.  If I don't do what they want
> me to, they will punish me with a rate increase.  It IS
> different because they coerce me to buy something else.

Either way you look at it, your Cable Internet rate is going up
to about $60; you can either buy Cable TV with that, or not.

It's no different than if my magazine subscription rate went up,
but they offer to sell me a subscription to a second magazine as
a bribe to keep the first rate the same.  In the end, my out of
pocket expense is the same.

I'm not saying what they're doing is right or good for the
consumer, but that the end-result, the raising of rates, is not
that uncommon.

-jc