5 ms·
Tell that to ISPs and, from what I hear, cable companies in the US—I’m sure there are other examples too. “Customer hostile” seems to be a perfectly “good” way
by Latty 7y ago
Tell that to ISPs and, from what I hear, cable companies in the US—I’m sure there are other examples too.
“Customer hostile” seems to be a perfectly “good” way to run a business if you goal is raw profit. Doubly so in the US with essentially non-existent consumer protection law.
- Gravityloss 7y agoThat's an incentive for the customer to select another company.
- wpietri 7y agoOnly if they can. In the US, people generally have at most a couple of ISP choices, and the general pattern of duopolies is to offer basically the same thing with minor differentiators (e.g., one will be 10% cheaper and 10% worse). Many airline routes are minimally competitive. This is not getting better with ecosystem lock-in effects. As TFA mentions, this guy had such a bad experience that he sued Apple, and he still bought another laptop from them. That's because Apple intentionally killed off the companies that built MacOS compatible hardware, and never allowed anybody else to build IOS phones or tablets.
- Latty 7y agoSure, in a simple textbook supply-and-demand model, but we all know that in the real world that isn't how it works. Most people have very limited choices, and all those choices engage in essentially the same user-hostile practices anyway. The only “choice” is to leave it altogether, which is visibly happening now there is an alternative to cable TV, but not having an internet connection isn't an option for most people.