> The mere fact that you feel like it's up to you (or anyone else who makes comments) to decide "ok that's enough" really does not make any sense. Actually it

> The mere fact that you feel like it's up to you (or anyone else who makes comments) to decide "ok that's enough" really does not make any sense. Actually it does. Consumers are allowed to make decisions about purchases on any grounds they choose, including whether they feel that a company is taking too much profit, or that the company is violating some ethical standard. Consumers are also free to call for boycotts or otherwise persuade others to not purchase products. If we think that a company should be transparent and justify their pricing so that it's proportional to costs, then that's what we think. If we think that companies shouldn't exploit the technical ignorance of consumers, then that's what we think. In a capitalist system, we're free to debate these questions, make purchasing decisions based on them and start competing companies to serve dissatisfied consumers. If we have more technical knowledge, preventing non-technical consumers from being exploited by sharing information with them is an ethical good. Most advocates of free markets argue that these capacities make the system work. The only thing that wouldn't be permitted in a pure capitalist system is if these ethical claims translated into a demand for government intervention, which no one has done so far. Even so, it's easy to argue that these arbitrary fees are a market failure caused by information asymmetry between Comcast and consumers and could require government intervention. The issue is not the price. It's that Comcast is misrepresenting the charge as technically necessary, which could be seen as discouraging consumers from evaluating competitors (assuming they exist) by implying that there are technical rather than business decisions behind the charge.