4 ms·

Of course, this is capitalism. A company will charge whatever they can get away with for a product or service. It's not "bogus fees", it's simply "profit". The

• tomohawk 7y ago
  The pressures at play here have more to do with cronyism and politics than capitalism. They can charge what they want because: no competition. There is no competition because the regulators have decreed that the lack of competition constitutes competition in their view.
  • p1esk 7y ago
    There’s no competition because of lobbying (aka corruption).
• neogodless 7y ago
  Just yesterday there was a related article, and I posted a similar comment, but I was right to be down-voted, to a degree. Capitalism is about growth and competition. When there's only one cable to your home, privately owned AND they act as a middleman for content, you do not have meaningful choice. The way to combat this is to only use that cable for internet. Ideally, there would still be competition (I'm very lucky to have cable and fiber to my home...) and go elsewhere for content. That being said, fees that are not included in the advertised price, are not actually government mandated taxes/fees but are added on to your bill and misrepresented? They should be fined for this behavior.
• fouc 7y ago
  It's not part of the base definition of capitalism. But you're correct, there's nothing stopping companies from trying to make a profit at the expense of tricking consumers with hidden fees.