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Of course it's controversial. They do this to increase profits. A certain portion of the population is pro-profit at virtually any cost. It might seem like D

Of course it's controversial. They do this to increase profits. A certain portion of the population is pro-profit at virtually any cost. It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" But usually they're just trying to find ways to make more money.

Centigonal 2y ago
Dish knows their satellite TV business is on the way out. Their strategy is to maximize the present value of that business by retaining and squeezing as many of those customers as much as possible, slowing the decline and pulling as much money out of that vertical for as long as they still have it, so that they can reinvest that cash into new verticals with more promise.
- xp84 2y ago
  Re: failing business To be fair, satellite TV has always been one of these even when it was a healthy business. High cost of acquisition, high commission for sales, high barrier to cancel.
- Aloha 2y ago
  The ironic part of all of this, I would have pay linear TV services if it was cheaper - 50 bucks a month for the whole house, and I suspect they could have 30%+ more customers.
  - thanksgiving 2y ago
    It doesn't solve the problem that "the line must constantly go up". A steady revenue and constant returns isn't good enough, apparently and in the case of dish, it will be declining revenue over time no matter what they do.
  - gosub100 2y ago
    Dish profit doesn't scale that way. They have to pay the channels for broadcast rights. More TVs per household means in theory more royalties paid to the networks.
- gosub100 2y ago
  I swear these satellite services could eliminate live tv and go on-demand only using a hard drive DVR style, with maybe 10-20 live channels. Everything else would be a stream that would download and notify you when it was ready. The bandwidth of those dishes has got to be multiple gigabytes per second. They could broadcast everything and the viewers would just opt in to the specific shows or movies they want. Completely switch the business model.
  - xp84 2y ago
    What would be the point though? To offer a slower imitation of streaming to people in remote areas? Most people are happy with regular internet streaming. Dish did do something sort of similar years ago though, don’t know if they still do, but they did some thing where your DVR would automatically record all primetime shows, so in that way, as long as you were ok waiting for the next day, in a sense, “everything was on demand.” https://www.reddit.com/r/dishnetwork/s/e0wspFb7zq https://www.reddit.com/r/dishnetwork/s/e0wspFb7zq
joecool1029 2y ago
> It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" Shit flows downhill. Their owner, Charlie Ergan, wakes up every day thinking of new ways to defraud the government with DISH and Echostar: https://nypost.com/2024/03/22/us-news/doj-moved-to-dismiss-3-3b-fraud-suit-against-dish-after-chairman-charlie-ergen-donated-113k-to-biden/ https://nypost.com/2024/03/22/us-news/doj-moved-to-dismiss-3... I usually complain about his spectrum squatting with DISH, but there's so much more if you dig a little.
throw10920 2y ago
> A certain portion of the population is pro-profit at virtually any cost. What percent? (Citation needed if it's anything greater than 1%) What does "virtually" mean? This statement has no details and just comes across as political dogwhistling as a result.
- BadHumans 2y ago
  Do you expect there to have been studies done on what percentage of the population puts profit over everything else? > What does "virtually" mean? virtually /vûr′choo͞-ə-lē/ adverb Almost but not quite; nearly.
  - throw10920 2y ago
    > Do you expect there to have been studies done on what percentage of the population puts profit over everything else? I expect people to not make claims without evidence. I never asked for a study, either - that's you misreading my comment. I asked for a citation, which could be a public poll - some empirical evidence, as opposed to none. > virtually /vûr′choo͞-ə-lē/ adverb Almost but not quite; nearly. This is an intentional misinterpretation of my question, as well as being sarcastic to mock and emotionally attack me. Any reasonable reader would have known that I meant "what value does virtually mean here?" You're intentionally being deceptive and emotionally manipulative to push a political agenda. Don't do that.
amyames 2y ago
>It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" Made the mistake of buying a boost mobile sim this year. It was “expired” upon opening it. Retailer refused to refund it. Having not learned my lesson yet, I went elsewhere and ripped it open to check the expiration date this time before I bought it. Well “it’s prepaid for 90 days and comes with 35 gigs” it says on the card. Go to activate it, it puts a further $100 on my credit card and congratulates me for activating my 30 gig service plan. Hokey frauds.
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  Be glad you weren’t on Ting.
  - simfree 2y ago
    What crap did Ting pull on you? Their aggressive data throttling always rubbed me the wrong way, along with the Extreme data pricing, considering it was on Sprint's terrible network.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
[flagged]
- nyczomg 2y ago
  You make the rule such that if you can sign up for a service on a website you can also cancel it said website. Now your hypothetical landscaping company is safe
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    Are they? A very basic website can easily have a form you can fill to sign up and all it does on the back end is send an email with the info to the proprietors. Even a generic mailto: or tel: link arguably makes it possible to sign up via the website, if tapping the link on your phone to send a message can directly result in a signup. To do the same thing for cancellations you'd have trouble avoiding the need for customer accounts to sign in and connect to a database to list what services they're currently subscribed to etc. Otherwise people who signed up under the wife's name may try to cancel under the husband's name and you don't know who they are, neighbors who don't like the racket from the equipment see your website on the trucks and try to cancel the service even though they're not the customer because you have no authentication, people want to cancel because they've moved and give you their new address instead of the one they're subscribed under, people make ambiguous or incomplete requests and you don't know what they're asking to do. But if you have to contact them to clarify you're not satisfying the requirement that they can cancel via the website.
    - foobarchu 2y ago
      A local business with a simple email form isn't going to sign you up without calling you to get more information and make sure you're a real person. That's already setting a precedent that you call them to cancel.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        > A local business with a simple email form isn't going to sign you up without calling you to get more information and make sure you're a real person. What do you mean? You go to the website, it has a form where you fill in your name and address and what service you want. They don't need any further information to send you an invoice. As soon as you pay it, landscapers come to your house and mow your lawn, and then each month you get another invoice until you cancel. That's a subscription; you signed up on the website using the form.
meiraleal 2y ago
The directors and shareholders, not the employees. They only want to get paid.
jagged-chisel 2y ago
> "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" But usually they're just trying to find ways to make more money. But you repeat yourself.
daveguy 2y ago
I think the GP meant it's not controversial to make the fees more transparent or even ban them. The dish employees (C-suite to be clear) and investors are the only ones who like it.

Centigonal 2y ago

Dish knows their satellite TV business is on the way out. Their strategy is to maximize the present value of that business by retaining and squeezing as many of those customers as much as possible, slowing the decline and pulling as much money out of that vertical for as long as they still have it, so that they can reinvest that cash into new verticals with more promise.

xp84 2y ago
Re: failing business To be fair, satellite TV has always been one of these even when it was a healthy business. High cost of acquisition, high commission for sales, high barrier to cancel.
Aloha 2y ago
The ironic part of all of this, I would have pay linear TV services if it was cheaper - 50 bucks a month for the whole house, and I suspect they could have 30%+ more customers.
- thanksgiving 2y ago
  It doesn't solve the problem that "the line must constantly go up". A steady revenue and constant returns isn't good enough, apparently and in the case of dish, it will be declining revenue over time no matter what they do.
- gosub100 2y ago
  Dish profit doesn't scale that way. They have to pay the channels for broadcast rights. More TVs per household means in theory more royalties paid to the networks.
gosub100 2y ago
I swear these satellite services could eliminate live tv and go on-demand only using a hard drive DVR style, with maybe 10-20 live channels. Everything else would be a stream that would download and notify you when it was ready. The bandwidth of those dishes has got to be multiple gigabytes per second. They could broadcast everything and the viewers would just opt in to the specific shows or movies they want. Completely switch the business model.
- xp84 2y ago
  What would be the point though? To offer a slower imitation of streaming to people in remote areas? Most people are happy with regular internet streaming. Dish did do something sort of similar years ago though, don’t know if they still do, but they did some thing where your DVR would automatically record all primetime shows, so in that way, as long as you were ok waiting for the next day, in a sense, “everything was on demand.” https://www.reddit.com/r/dishnetwork/s/e0wspFb7zq https://www.reddit.com/r/dishnetwork/s/e0wspFb7zq

joecool1029 2y ago

> It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" Shit flows downhill. Their owner, Charlie Ergan, wakes up every day thinking of new ways to defraud the government with DISH and Echostar: https://nypost.com/2024/03/22/us-news/doj-moved-to-dismiss-3-3b-fraud-suit-against-dish-after-chairman-charlie-ergen-donated-113k-to-biden/ https://nypost.com/2024/03/22/us-news/doj-moved-to-dismiss-3... I usually complain about his spectrum squatting with DISH, but there's so much more if you dig a little.

throw10920 2y ago

> A certain portion of the population is pro-profit at virtually any cost. What percent? (Citation needed if it's anything greater than 1%) What does "virtually" mean? This statement has no details and just comes across as political dogwhistling as a result.

BadHumans 2y ago
Do you expect there to have been studies done on what percentage of the population puts profit over everything else? > What does "virtually" mean? virtually /vûr′choo͞-ə-lē/ adverb Almost but not quite; nearly.
- throw10920 2y ago
  > Do you expect there to have been studies done on what percentage of the population puts profit over everything else? I expect people to not make claims without evidence. I never asked for a study, either - that's you misreading my comment. I asked for a citation, which could be a public poll - some empirical evidence, as opposed to none. > virtually /vûr′choo͞-ə-lē/ adverb Almost but not quite; nearly. This is an intentional misinterpretation of my question, as well as being sarcastic to mock and emotionally attack me. Any reasonable reader would have known that I meant "what value does virtually mean here?" You're intentionally being deceptive and emotionally manipulative to push a political agenda. Don't do that.

amyames 2y ago

>It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" Made the mistake of buying a boost mobile sim this year. It was “expired” upon opening it. Retailer refused to refund it. Having not learned my lesson yet, I went elsewhere and ripped it open to check the expiration date this time before I bought it. Well “it’s prepaid for 90 days and comes with 35 gigs” it says on the card. Go to activate it, it puts a further $100 on my credit card and congratulates me for activating my 30 gig service plan. Hokey frauds.

selimthegrim 2y ago
Be glad you weren’t on Ting.
- simfree 2y ago
  What crap did Ting pull on you? Their aggressive data throttling always rubbed me the wrong way, along with the Extreme data pricing, considering it was on Sprint's terrible network.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

[flagged]

nyczomg 2y ago
You make the rule such that if you can sign up for a service on a website you can also cancel it said website. Now your hypothetical landscaping company is safe
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  Are they? A very basic website can easily have a form you can fill to sign up and all it does on the back end is send an email with the info to the proprietors. Even a generic mailto: or tel: link arguably makes it possible to sign up via the website, if tapping the link on your phone to send a message can directly result in a signup. To do the same thing for cancellations you'd have trouble avoiding the need for customer accounts to sign in and connect to a database to list what services they're currently subscribed to etc. Otherwise people who signed up under the wife's name may try to cancel under the husband's name and you don't know who they are, neighbors who don't like the racket from the equipment see your website on the trucks and try to cancel the service even though they're not the customer because you have no authentication, people want to cancel because they've moved and give you their new address instead of the one they're subscribed under, people make ambiguous or incomplete requests and you don't know what they're asking to do. But if you have to contact them to clarify you're not satisfying the requirement that they can cancel via the website.
  - foobarchu 2y ago
    A local business with a simple email form isn't going to sign you up without calling you to get more information and make sure you're a real person. That's already setting a precedent that you call them to cancel.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > A local business with a simple email form isn't going to sign you up without calling you to get more information and make sure you're a real person. What do you mean? You go to the website, it has a form where you fill in your name and address and what service you want. They don't need any further information to send you an invoice. As soon as you pay it, landscapers come to your house and mow your lawn, and then each month you get another invoice until you cancel. That's a subscription; you signed up on the website using the form.

meiraleal 2y ago

The directors and shareholders, not the employees. They only want to get paid.

jagged-chisel 2y ago

> "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" But usually they're just trying to find ways to make more money. But you repeat yourself.

daveguy 2y ago

I think the GP meant it's not controversial to make the fees more transparent or even ban them. The dish employees (C-suite to be clear) and investors are the only ones who like it.