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Recently, Cox had an outage in the city where my parents live. My dad, close to 70, misconstrued the situation and though it was just our modem being slow. He d

Recently, Cox had an outage in the city where my parents live. My dad, close to 70, misconstrued the situation and though it was just our modem being slow. He drove to a brick & mortar Cox shop, where a rep promptly sold him on leasing a gateway for $10/mo that would be (and I quote) "25 times faster" than the speeds we were currently getting (roughly peaking at 250 Mbps down). Of course, my Dad, not knowing too much about this stuff, rents the new router. And of course, it doesn't solve the fact that there was an outage in the first place. I tested the new connection and while I could see _rare_ instances of faster peak speeds, for the most part it was not much faster than the old setup when sampled over time. I really hope there comes a day when companies can be held accountable for straight up lying and taking advantage of customers who simply don't have the technical means to know any better. It really, really bothers me when my parents get taken advantage of like this and I know I'm mostly helpless to prevent it without micro-managing my dad's tech purchasing decisions.

eblanshey 8y ago
I sometimes think that the _core_ reason companies like this take advantage of people is because people don't usually care enough to do anything about it; in other words, to care enough to help _other_ people out. I envision that in the future there will some kind of easy to use "web of trust" that people will look up before deciding to do business w/ someone. Review sites like Yelp/Facebook are just the start of this concept but I think it could eventually turn into something more robust.
- andromedavision 8y ago
  care_enough_to_explain_the_weird_underscores?
  - voltagex_ 8y ago
    Older way of showing bold or italics.
    - will_pseudonym 8y ago
      It's also how _Markdown_ shows italics.
    - simula67 8y ago
      HN already has italics. It shows up "like this" if you use asterisks
  - ruffrey 8y ago
    Markdown italics maybe.
  - AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
    Consider the word that has it around to be underlined.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  Employees get incentivized to upsell customers, and some just run with it gleefully. If they were paid by the hour regardless, and actually chewed out pushing things on people they don't need, things would be very different, but the fish stinks from the head. I once worked in a call center for a shitty ISP for a little while, based on that one sample, I say the core reason for these shennanigans is solely to be found in corporate sociopathy, that is, the kind of people that attracts and who climb those ladders. They grin from ear to ear so much, they know exactly what they're doing. And wherever you find people who exploit customers you will also find people hating customers, since they project their own evil. It's gotta go somewhere and looking into the mirror is not an option for them.
Pristina 8y ago
Caveat Emptor Your dad has been around for 70 years. How has he not figured out not to trust a salesperson and do independent research or consult an expert (literally YOU, his son, one phone call away).
- ngngngng 8y ago
  Is it perhaps a skill that is lost with age? Everyday I see online posts made by old people that show a complete lack of critical thinking ability. These are all relatively successful people, I imagine they couldn't have made it so far in life without critical thinking.
  - AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
    And that raises the question, should people above a certain age stop being considered as adults and have their adult privileges taken away? Just like children who tend to lack critical thinking can't vote then why should people older than a certain age get to do it? Note, this is not something that I necessarily agree with, especially because I know quite a few of old people (my ex-professors) who seem quite good with critical thinking.
    - hueving 8y ago
      If you want to ban people who can't think, add tests on thinking abilities. Age is a terrible proxy.
      - AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
        I totally agree, which is part of why I believe that age limitations on people who can vote is a bad idea.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Not everyone enjoys the task of performing extensive research, and perhaps a 70 year old might value their time doing something else? I've also met more than one 70+ year old person who was convinced that they understood how things worked, and to admit otherwise was to display weakness/lose credibility (despite that not being the case at all). The point is, what is obvious to you may not be obvious to others, and you have no idea why they chose the route they did.
pandapower2 8y ago
>I really hope there comes a day when companies can be held accountable for straight up lying and taking advantage of customers who simply don't have the technical means to know any better. The situation is genuinely pretty grim but there is the occasional bright spot. If you google "australia nbn false speed claims" you can read about how half a dozen Australian ISPs had to pay penalties, change their advertising and refund NBN (national broadband network) customers who paid for speeds that were not possible on their home Internet connections. There is the occasional win for individuals but its mostly when large numbers of people are affected all at once.
Stratoscope 8y ago
It's hard to be critical of your dad for this. If you told me that for only $10 extra per month, I could increase my download speed from a mere 250 Mbps to 6.25 GIGABITS per second, well of course I would sit up and take notice. Who wouldn't? (While they are at it, do you think they could boost my 90 Mbps connection to 2.25 Gbps? I have $10/month burning a hole in my pocket!)
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  ...well, a counterargument would be, if you never do anything that requires such fast speeds, the extra $10 per month isn’t worthwhile regardless of the percent increase. By extension, if the customer increased their speed and didn’t notice a difference, than either the speed is the same OR the extra speed was never needed to begin with. Mind you, none of this excuses Comcast! Also, the placebo effect is powerful. I recall a time my father upgraded his internet plan, and then marveled at how much “faster” Google Chrome’s new tab page opened...

eblanshey 8y ago

I sometimes think that the _core_ reason companies like this take advantage of people is because people don't usually care enough to do anything about it; in other words, to care enough to help _other_ people out. I envision that in the future there will some kind of easy to use "web of trust" that people will look up before deciding to do business w/ someone. Review sites like Yelp/Facebook are just the start of this concept but I think it could eventually turn into something more robust.

andromedavision 8y ago
care_enough_to_explain_the_weird_underscores?
- voltagex_ 8y ago
  Older way of showing bold or italics.
  - will_pseudonym 8y ago
    It's also how _Markdown_ shows italics.
  - simula67 8y ago
    HN already has italics. It shows up "like this" if you use asterisks
- ruffrey 8y ago
  Markdown italics maybe.
- AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
  Consider the word that has it around to be underlined.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
Employees get incentivized to upsell customers, and some just run with it gleefully. If they were paid by the hour regardless, and actually chewed out pushing things on people they don't need, things would be very different, but the fish stinks from the head. I once worked in a call center for a shitty ISP for a little while, based on that one sample, I say the core reason for these shennanigans is solely to be found in corporate sociopathy, that is, the kind of people that attracts and who climb those ladders. They grin from ear to ear so much, they know exactly what they're doing. And wherever you find people who exploit customers you will also find people hating customers, since they project their own evil. It's gotta go somewhere and looking into the mirror is not an option for them.

Pristina 8y ago

Caveat Emptor Your dad has been around for 70 years. How has he not figured out not to trust a salesperson and do independent research or consult an expert (literally YOU, his son, one phone call away).

ngngngng 8y ago
Is it perhaps a skill that is lost with age? Everyday I see online posts made by old people that show a complete lack of critical thinking ability. These are all relatively successful people, I imagine they couldn't have made it so far in life without critical thinking.
- AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
  And that raises the question, should people above a certain age stop being considered as adults and have their adult privileges taken away? Just like children who tend to lack critical thinking can't vote then why should people older than a certain age get to do it? Note, this is not something that I necessarily agree with, especially because I know quite a few of old people (my ex-professors) who seem quite good with critical thinking.
  - hueving 8y ago
    If you want to ban people who can't think, add tests on thinking abilities. Age is a terrible proxy.
    - AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
      I totally agree, which is part of why I believe that age limitations on people who can vote is a bad idea.
craftyguy 8y ago
Not everyone enjoys the task of performing extensive research, and perhaps a 70 year old might value their time doing something else? I've also met more than one 70+ year old person who was convinced that they understood how things worked, and to admit otherwise was to display weakness/lose credibility (despite that not being the case at all). The point is, what is obvious to you may not be obvious to others, and you have no idea why they chose the route they did.

pandapower2 8y ago

>I really hope there comes a day when companies can be held accountable for straight up lying and taking advantage of customers who simply don't have the technical means to know any better. The situation is genuinely pretty grim but there is the occasional bright spot. If you google "australia nbn false speed claims" you can read about how half a dozen Australian ISPs had to pay penalties, change their advertising and refund NBN (national broadband network) customers who paid for speeds that were not possible on their home Internet connections. There is the occasional win for individuals but its mostly when large numbers of people are affected all at once.

Stratoscope 8y ago

It's hard to be critical of your dad for this. If you told me that for only $10 extra per month, I could increase my download speed from a mere 250 Mbps to 6.25 GIGABITS per second, well of course I would sit up and take notice. Who wouldn't? (While they are at it, do you think they could boost my 90 Mbps connection to 2.25 Gbps? I have $10/month burning a hole in my pocket!)

Wowfunhappy 8y ago
...well, a counterargument would be, if you never do anything that requires such fast speeds, the extra $10 per month isn’t worthwhile regardless of the percent increase. By extension, if the customer increased their speed and didn’t notice a difference, than either the speed is the same OR the extra speed was never needed to begin with. Mind you, none of this excuses Comcast! Also, the placebo effect is powerful. I recall a time my father upgraded his internet plan, and then marveled at how much “faster” Google Chrome’s new tab page opened...