> these aren't fees Comcast chooses to charge These are, in fact, fees Comcast chooses to charge. This reminds me of the confusion of some other employees whe

> these aren't fees Comcast chooses to charge These are, in fact, fees Comcast chooses to charge. This reminds me of the confusion of some other employees when a start-up I was working for got purchased. The new owners proposed that we should sign documents agreeing certain conditions in exchange for which they'd pay us a "bonus" of an amount to be determined by a complicated formula at the end of their financial year. So I glance at this document, it's as I think, and I explain this document requires you to work for them for a period of time, it's a weaker version of the document the senior people are signing or have signed -- but unlike theirs it doesn't actually pay us ordinary employees any money - therefore I explain you should not sign if you think you might want to work somewhere else any time soon. e.g. if your role makes no sense as part of the larger entity and you've got better things to do with your life rather than collect a salary for a few months until they realise you aren't necessary and fire you. I got widespread objections - it has a bonus scheme. Yeah, the way that scheme works their accountants are going to decide whether they pay us money in a year's time. Guess what those accountants are going to say? They're going to say "No". If they wanted to pay us money, they would just pay us money as they did with our management. Employers can always pay you money. There is tax due on it if they do, but that's their problem not yours. When an employer doesn't give you money the reason is that they don't want to give you money. Don't ask for another explanation, it's demeaning for them to have to pretend and for you to listen. In a year's time I got a call from the CTO, an old friend, was I on that bonus scheme? Yes, I said, it doesn't matter to me (then or now). He was warning people because he'd been tipped off that of course it was worthless, exactly as I had said, but whoever had told him had seen the numbers from the accountants now. Comcast can choose not to charge these fees, but it wants to. It would like to be able to say "Our price is $49.99" and then bill you say $84 per month and blame the difference on vague "fees". They only need to justify how that adds up to $84 in the case that someone works very hard, maybe a journalist working on a story about rip off ISPs. And if it's bullshit? They just say "Oops" and refund some fees when caught if their lawyers tell them that's cheapest. In the UK for a long time ISPs would claim their charges didn't match the advertised price because it didn't include a fee they paid to BT Openreach, the incumbent telco whose copper cables they're using to provide service. In a way they were telling the truth, Openreach did charge them a fee. Unfortunately that fee is published by law, fairly small, and it had been steadily going down, because "maintaining some copper cables under the street" isn't expensive. On the other hand the fee these ISPs would add to the supposed "price" for consumers was larger and going up over time. Eventually the regulator told them to knock it off with this bullshit and just tell people the actual price including this mandatory fee.