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down with slavery posted:If only there was some way to classify these providers where we could better regulate their prices and services offered, oh well. We already have that, friend. It's already in place and in effect. down with slavery posted:What's really obnoxious is people who blindly defend the practices of predatory corporations for no reason other than being a contrarian idiot. The only person being a "contrarian idiot" here is you down with slavery. zachol posted:No, it's absolutely not. Yes it is, the terms are shown to you before you agree to the service, and not in 4 point font after 50 pages.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:21
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Just don't call someone a shill. It's really not hard and not up for debate.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:21
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It's all about putting the corporation first. "They should be able to pursue any business method if it's legal" is the position instead of "is this business practice ethical?" XyloJW posted:Just don't call someone a shill. It's really not hard and not up for debate. I have no plans on doing so, but it would be nice if you also enforce the rules on some of the other people who aren't really arguing in an intellectually honest fashion.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:22
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Shut up fishmech, he was talking to me.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:22
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Nintendo Kid posted:Please describe what you think is the problem. They tell you what the price is going to be when the introductory period is up, that's the law. Their business model is literally advertising an introductory price at which it is not profitable to provide service in the hopes that some people will, for one reason or another, not do anything about it when the price goes up. Different customers are offered different prices for largely arbitrary reasons (threatening to leave, calling during a particular promotion, whatever), resulting in all sorts of pricing inefficiencies. There is little transparency in pricing because of this structure, and someone would practically need a business class to meaningfully compare different providers (should the average consumer be comparing the NPV of 12 months at $60 and then 12 more at $120, compared to 6 months at $50 and 18 more at $130, all while trying to project which offers will be available at the end of the promotional term?). Basically, it's as inefficient and opaque as could be to the consumer, resulting in service providers being able to charge more than they could (for the same service) if regulation was in place disallowing this sort of nonsense. This is all happening at the expense of consumers, and it should be the role of regulatory agencies to prevent that.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:23
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down with slavery posted:It's all about putting the corporation first. The specific business practices you keep bringing up are ethical.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:23
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Nintendo Kid posted:The specific business practices you keep bringing up are ethical. Clearly it's a matter of opinion... I'll go ahead and stay on this side, you can hang out over there if you really want to live in a world where the fine print rules. I think we could do without it in most cases. These types of opaque pricing schemes only hurt the customer, and this isn't the only place where it happens. Finance, automobile purchasing, housing, etc. There's a concentrated effort by the companies to make it complicated at the cost of the consumer, which is just bullshit. I get that part of my low telco rate is other people getting hosed by them. I'd rather we all pay the same price and get the same good service as opposed to having tiers where the poor cannot afford quality connections or "stupid people" have to pay more. XyloJW posted:I generally agree with your argument, but the point of this forum is to debate and let the audience form an opinion, as I have done reading the past few pages, not to have a winner declared by the mods and the loser probated for being wrong or dumb. I understand what you're saying. My problem is less with "wrong" or "dumb" as opposed to "purposefully obtuse" but you're right in the sense that the only person he's making look stupid is himself so meh, let the audience see it for what it is. down with slavery fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 21:25
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Nintendo Kid posted:The specific business practices you keep bringing up are ethical. No, they're absolutely not. Maybe they happen to be legal, but they should not be allowed. Internet providers should be competing on service and price, not on how well they can fool people into signing up.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:27
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Their business model is literally advertising an introductory price at which it is not profitable to provide service in the hopes that some people will, for one reason or another, not do anything about it when the price goes up. Different customers are offered different prices for largely arbitrary reasons (threatening to leave, calling during a particular promotion, whatever), resulting in all sorts of pricing inefficiencies. There is practically no transparency in pricing because of this structure, and someone would practically need a business class to meaningfully compare different providers (should the average consumer be comparing the NPV of 12 months at $60 and then 12 more at $120, compared to 6 months at $50 and 18 more at $130, all while trying to project which offers will be available at the end of the promotional term?). The introductory price is completely profitable, rest assured they are making profit from month 1. The higher price that comes later is simply more profitable. your first mistake is makign the assumption that the introductory price can't be profitable for them. There is no sensible regulation that could make it "better" for the consumer. It would simply be people paying full price all the time from all providers. down with slavery posted:Clearly it's a matter of opinion... I'll go ahead and stay on this side, you can hang out over there if you really want to live in a world where the fine print rules. I think we could do without it in most cases. These types of opaque pricing schemes only hurt the customer, and this isn't the only place where it happens. Finance, automobile purchasing, housing, etc. There's a concentrated effort by the companies to make it complicated at the cost of the consumer, which is just bullshit. There's nothing opaque about "you get a discount the first 12 months, then you pay full price, and here's the full price". And none of this has anything to do with the poor, who among other things are much more likely to be on prepaid or month-to-month plans, where the costs are entirely upfront. zachol posted:No, they're absolutely not. Maybe they happen to be legal, but they should not be allowed. Internet providers should be competing on service and price, not on how well they can fool people into signing up. You're making the false assumption that competition exists to begin with, and that competition is capable of actually bringing down prices. Anyone who's ever lived through deregulated electricity knows how much of a lie that is. The actual services you can get are known - US ISPs provide very close to or over their advertised speeds these days, and if you do anything more than blindly mash the first BUY ACCESS NOW button you find, the prices are listed. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 21:28
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Nintendo Kid posted:There is no sensible regulation that could make it "better" for the consumer. It would simply be people paying full price all the time from all providers. This would be far better, because then the providers would be forced to advertise and compete based on the actual long-term price of their service.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:30
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down with slavery posted:I have no plans on doing so, but it would be nice if you also enforce the rules on some of the other people who aren't really arguing in an intellectually honest fashion. I generally agree with your argument, but the point of this forum is to debate and let the audience form an opinion, as I have done reading the past few pages, not to have a winner declared by the mods and the loser probated for being wrong or dumb.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:30
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zachol posted:This would be far better, because then the providers would be forced to advertise and compete based on the actual long-term price of their service. This already exists: they already list the price when the promotion's over, and their advertised speeds are the actual speeds they provide.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:31
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Nintendo Kid posted:The introductory price is completely profitable, rest assured they are making profit from month 1. The higher price that comes later is simply more profitable. your first mistake is makign the assumption that the introductory price can't be profitable for them. Please explain how an industry with operating profits on the order of 20% of revenues is making profit from "month 1" on plans that often offer introductory pricing 30-50% below the standard rates. Are you just openly telling us that service providers are straight up gouging anyone paying their standard rates? And then defending this practice?
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Jun 14, 2014 21:33
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Please explain how an industry with operating profits on the order of 20% of revenues is making profit from "month 1" on plans that often offer introductory pricing 30-50% below the standard rates. You're getting confused by creative accounting. Especially on wireline broadband, there is minimal marginal cost of providing additional speeds up to a certain point. The cost to provide me 30 megabit service is only slightly more than providing me 3 megabit service, since they've already set up this area to handle 105 megabit service. Cable TV packages are different because many cable channels actually charge the carrier per customer that can see them, but as far as internet service they never give non-profitable rates except for the subsidized low-income rates through lifeline-like programs. This is the entire reason service providers are big businesses, yes. Profit is a thing corporations do, yes.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:38
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"Creative accounting" not a red flag at all
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Jun 14, 2014 21:39
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down with slavery posted:"Creative accounting" not a red flag at all It isn't, no.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:40
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Nintendo Kid posted:It isn't, no. As someone with an accountant who I tell not to get creative, trust me, "creativity" when it comes to finance and taxes has a very specific connotation I mean, I guess if the system is what it is and "playing by the rules" whatever they may be is considered "ethical" to you... but theres plenty of shady poo poo thats perfectly legal that people do all the time
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Jun 14, 2014 21:42
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down with slavery posted:As someone with an accountant who I tell not to get creative, trust me, "creativity" when it comes to finance and taxes has a very specific connotation We're talking about companies that are in multiple industries reporting just their overall revenue versus profit, and having people assume form that the ratios are the same cross all their products and businesses. And so you have people like that guy assuming that therefore companies can't possibly afford discounts on one sector of business larger than the overall profit percentage of the whole company.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:45
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Okay, but that still leaves this:AreWeDrunkYet posted:Are you just openly telling us that service providers are straight up gouging anyone paying their standard rates? And then defending this practice? Profits on that scale seem unreasonable for a natural monopoly on a such a basic service. If my water company was somehow a for-profit business with similar profits, I'd say there's something wrong there too.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:48
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zachol posted:Okay, but that still leaves this: Yeah corporations exist, shock, horror. Nationalization would probably be good but there's less than zero possibility of that, and even if we managed it we'd probably soon get the stuff re-privatized again (thank god we've managed to at least keep our post office government owned). But it's the kind of profits that's thoroughly on par with global norms, particularly in the developed world, and at least our ISPs stick closely to the promised speeds, unlike many European Union study area ISPs. The main additional cost that arises from a higher tier broadband service is a) increased need to keep maintenance up to maintain the rates and b) eventually needing to upgrade backhaul slightly earlier than first planned for. Edit: So basically, this is why always paying your bill on time and being willing to threaten to switch providers can get you long term discounts on internet service. The company cares more than anything about consistent profits, so they'll generally be willing to haggle on prices and service with you to keep your business - an always on time customer who gets himself slightly better service then he "should" have but at minimal additional cost to you, the ISP, can be worth multiple higher-tier subscribers who have a bad habit of missing payments. The margins they give themselves to play with are similar to the kind of flexibility in prices the hotel industry and Amtrak and discount bus lines, and the airline industry have. The differences between the rack rates, the normal rates, and the rates needed to make a profit. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 21:55
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Nintendo Kid posted:Yeah corporations exist, shock, horror. Capitalism makes sense for luxuries or when there's competition. Although ISPs do compete against each others in some locations, in many places there's only one choice, and you're subject to whatever pricing scheme they come up with. The broadband here has dramatically improved in terms of reliability over the last year, but I honestly believe that's only because we've been working on getting municipal fiber hooked up, and the provider is feeling some pressure from that. Like, our power comes from a utility cooperative, which is also setting up the fiber, which was only possible from a grant, and the power company was originally set up by the New Deal in a similar way. I don't see why analogous programs shouldn't be established generally. We still pay for power, and we'll still pay for broadband, but it's a lot more sustainable and reasonable than having the power companies be for-profit. Like, the options aren't necessarily just rampant capitalism and total nationalization.
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Jun 14, 2014 22:13
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zachol posted:Capitalism makes sense for luxuries or when there's competition. Although ISPs do compete against each others in some locations, in many places there's only one choice, and you're subject to whatever pricing scheme they come up with. There actually are internet cooperatives all over the place already, especially in rural areas. The main issue municipal fiber proposals face is that in most places noone's even bothering to propose them, and in many others a lot of people will refuse to support them because as far as they're concerned what they have is good enough already. And there's definitely minimal interest in doing a nation-level version of that. The state-level anti-municipal network laws are a problem on their own, but much more places are outside their bounds than are within them. As an aside, I really hate the trend in some municipal/regional fiber networks where the government builds the network, but then is forbidden to actually directly provide the service to end users, instead being required to resell the network to private companies who get to profit off it. Among other places, Utah has a few of these setups, like http://www.utopianet.org/ which requires 7 different companies to get to actually sell the service. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 22:20
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A nation-level system sounds like probably a bad idea. Hopefully things will get ironed out over the next, like, ten years or whatever, as there gets to be a lot more consistent demand for broadband. If the people of a town honestly don't want muni fiber or w/e then that's their problem, but I hope it will remain/become a very easy thing to get if and when they do. I feel this is like road repair, everyone gets angry about it when it's happening but then later on it's like, oh, hey, why didn't we do this earlier.
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Jun 14, 2014 22:30
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Nintendo Kid posted:As an aside, I really hate the trend in some municipal/regional fiber networks where the government builds the network, but then is forbidden to actually directly provide the service to end users, instead being required to resell the network to private companies who get to profit off it. Among other places, Utah has a few of these setups, like http://www.utopianet.org/ which requires 7 different companies to get to actually sell the service. I don't know, that sounds pretty communist there, comrade. Is it really necessary for them to be publicly operated anyway? Maybe those 7 companies actually provide really good service and you're just being a big whiner.
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Jun 14, 2014 22:35
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Paul MaudDib posted:I don't know, that sounds pretty communist there, comrade. Is it really necessary for them to be publicly operated anyway? Maybe those 7 companies actually provide really good service and you're just being a big whiner. Nice strawman but seriously this is exactly the worst kind of privatizing poo poo. The companies involved do little more than billing and marketing, most of them not even directly handling repair/tech support. And it's a blatant example of how "competition" fails, as the 7 entitled resellers give no meaningful difference in service or prices. AND the member cities of the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency still have debts they owe years later that the ISPs that resell the network barely pay into. Edit: It's essentially a repeat of how it quickly turned out mandated open access to phone lines for DSL service didn't provide meaningful competition between DSL providers; only there it was the incumbent local exchange carrier who had spent the money for the network to start. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 22:38
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Nintendo Kid posted:Profit is a thing corporations do, yes. Not for tax purposes (hence inversions, Double Irish and Dutch Sandwich transactions, etc). For GAAP/IFRS and internal accounting purposes, though, yes.
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Jun 14, 2014 22:57
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Nintendo Kid posted:Nice strawman but seriously this is exactly the worst kind of privatizing poo poo. The companies involved do little more than billing and marketing, most of them not even directly handling repair/tech support. And it's a blatant example of how "competition" fails, as the 7 entitled resellers give no meaningful difference in service or prices. Perhaps there's no meaningful difference in service or price because the prices are fair and the service is good? You haven't demonstrated your claims at all, you're just making baseless accusations about these noble service providers. Instead of listening to your guildmates complain during your raid, you should cite some actual data to show why this arrangement is harmful. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Jun 15, 2014 |
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Jun 15, 2014 00:10
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Paul MaudDib posted:Perhaps there's no meaningful difference in service or price because the prices are fair and the service is good? You haven't demonstrated your claims at all, you're just making baseless accusations about these noble service providers. Stop railing and make an actual argument. You're pretty lovely at strawmen, friend.
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Jun 15, 2014 00:17
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Just for perspective, 3 of the 18 pages of this thread are all from fishmech. This is what you are arguing with: Nintendo Kid posted:lies. Nintendo Kid posted:lies! Nintendo Kid posted:strawman Nintendo Kid posted:strawman party Nintendo Kid posted:strawmen Nintendo Kid posted:straw-pile. Nintendo Kid posted:lying Nintendo Kid posted:lying Nintendo Kid posted:Lying's Nintendo Kid posted:strawpile Nintendo Kid posted:strawman
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Jun 15, 2014 00:34
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FRINGE posted:Just for perspective, 3 of the 18 pages of this thread are all from fishmech. Thanks for pointing out that I accurately describe people's arguments, FRINGE. I'd like to bring up again the European Union report on broadband access in its territory: http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/quality-broadband-services-eu-samknows-study-internet-speeds
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Jun 15, 2014 00:44
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That's great, but you still haven't shown that those public-private muni ISPs provide poor service or unfair pricing? Certainly not to any higher degree than the fully-private ISPs you spend your days fellating.
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Jun 15, 2014 00:45
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Paul MaudDib posted:That's great, but you still haven't shown that those public-private muni ISPs provide poor service or unfair pricing? These are fully private ISPs that are providing an unnecessary layer and continue to saddle the municipalities with debt from the system, while showing once again that competition as an inherent good is a neoliberal lie. Since the network was fully funded and built by the public, it should be sold to the public directly by the government entity ala Bristol Tennessee's system.
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Jun 15, 2014 00:49
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Nintendo Kid posted:It's cute that you think this is in any way America only, or even cable only. This is a shill post, right here. "It's bad everywhere else too though!" (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 15, 2014 05:14
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Arglebargle III posted:This is a shill post, right here. "It's bad everywhere else too though!" It's relevant since they specifically mentioned being an American customer. The main object of contention ITT is that American broadband is significantly worse than other countries (in price, bandwidth, reliability, etc). Few if anyone actually agrees that this is the ideal setup for ISPs (see: Fishmech's post about municipal internet not being allowed to be sold to customers).
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Jun 15, 2014 05:23
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 Can somebody explain this to me? I live in the UK just outside of a city. The wifi tests are ones ran in my house and (one) on enterprise wifi (should be obvious which one that is). The cellular ones are through my 4G connection. I pay a grand total of ~40 dollars a month for the former and ~20 dollars for the latter. Both are unlimited and with no cap. How is it that my phone, for 20 dollars on a notoriously lovely network, can average significantly faster than your home broadband in urban centres for a significantly smaller amount of money and with no cap? You guys are the tech centre of the world. The vast majority of the most used servers sit in your country. A pokey UK backwater ought to be no match for a place like San Francisco on price/performance.
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Jun 15, 2014 16:41
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Ocrassus posted:
Curious how you're getting 20 bucks a month for unlimited 4g in the UK when EE, o2, and three don't even offer a plan of any type (much less unlimited) for 20 pounds (much less 20 dollars.) Kalman fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Jun 15, 2014 |
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Jun 15, 2014 18:55
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The ILECs and incumbent cable providers love to take the Title 2 benefits if they need right of way or want to get the mandatory pole attachment rates, but then they cry foul when faced with other Title 2 responsibilities such as filing public interconnection agreements on fixed VOIP and data. Basically, if you want real competition in the US then you need to have the FCC classify then as Telecommunications Carriers and force then into open, joinable interconnection agreements. That also has the benefits of subjecting then to state-level consumer protection regulation.
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Jun 15, 2014 19:52
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Kalman posted:Curious how you're getting 20 bucks a month for unlimited 4g in the UK when EE, o2, and three don't even offer a plan of any type (much less unlimited) for 20 pounds (much less 20 dollars.) Sim only. 200 minutes, 5000 texts, unlimited data. 12.90 per month. 1 month rolling contract (can cancel at any time) on network three. Idk where you got the idea that they don't offer such plans. :/ a neurotic ai fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jun 15, 2014 |
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Jun 15, 2014 20:36
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Kalman posted:Curious how you're getting 20 bucks a month for unlimited 4g in the UK when EE, o2, and three don't even offer a plan of any type (much less unlimited) for 20 pounds (much less 20 dollars.) So your entire argument is "You're lying?"
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Jun 15, 2014 22:34
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I mean he's wrong that I'm lying and a cursory google would reveal that fact. 12.90 for unlimited 4G. In practice this results in ~20-25 Mbps in the city centre and 10 Mbps in my house. Add to that I have HSPA+ in most towns which averages 5 Mbps and American broadband begins to look really quite goofy. Especially considering three is a terrible network with terrible customer service and terrible bandwidth allocations. This is England for Christ sake, we only just got round to implementing 4G because our goddamn government took forever to auction off the spectrum.
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Jun 15, 2014 23:00
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