Americans Hate TV and Internet Providers More Than Other Industries

An anonymous reader writes "According to a new report by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, subscription TV providers and ISPs were the industries Americans disliked the most over the past year. 'Over-the-top video services, like Netflix and Hulu, threaten subscription TV providers and also put pressure on ISP network infrastructure. Customers question the value proposition of both, as consumers pay for more than they need in terms of subscription TV and get less than they want in terms of Internet speeds and reliability.' Unsurprisingly, Time Warner Cable and Comcast are the companies with the most dissatisfied customers. The ACSI said, '[I]t's a concern whenever two poor-performing service providers combine operations. ACSI data consistently show that mergers in service industries usually result in lower customer satisfaction, at least in the short term. It's hard to see how combining two negatives will be a positive for consumers.'"

Comments

Not me

[rossdee]

The industry I hate the most is the fossil fuels industry
Not just because of global warming, but mostly because they control the politicians and stop anything being done about it.

Re:Not me

[Cornwallis]

I don't blame them for doing what a business is supposed to do as much as I blame the politicians.

Read "Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets" -http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-Pockets/dp/0544103343

Re:Not me

[cryptolemur]

If we started to assume that business is not supposed to behave the most sosiopathic and misantropist way possible, the world might become a better place.

In other words, the bottom line is no excuse for anything. Not even in business. A creepy bastard is a creepy bastard, even if it's for profit.

Re:Not me

[FudRucker]

RE:" A creepy bastard is a creepy bastard"

that is the truth, and especially when they do it for profit, no wonder the rest of the world hates the USA, the politicans and corpirates have raped and murdered across the globe for profits http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re:Not me

[jellomizer]

You are stating you should find a home located in a commercial district of a City? Then have your life locked down to that city, as you cannot get a job outside of the walking limits. What happens if that particular company folds or goes away? Are there enough other companies in walking distance to cover that. Are the city streets really that safe in these areas, or do you risk getting mugged, beaten up as a Gang initiation right. God help you if you need to work past dark.

Re:Not me

[AthanasiusKircher]

I don't blame them for doing what a business is supposed to do as much as I blame the politicians.

In other words, the bottom line is no excuse for anything. Not even in business.

I absolutely agree. But I also think the GP makes an important point -- businesses shouldn't behave like jerks, but politicians deserve even more of the blame. Why? Because they have the power effectively to set the legal standards for "right" and "wrong."

A rapist can harm one person, but he can be punished according to law. A corporation can harm thousands of people, but it can be punished according to law. A politician can harm millions of people and write his own "get of out jail free card" into law, as well as enabling thousands of bad acts perpetrated by rapists or corporations or whatever evil buddies he has.

Periodically, there's a debate around here about the death penalty and when (if ever) it should be applied. As far as I'm concerned, the debate shouldn't begin with murderers or rapists or cop-killers, because they have nothing compared to corrupt politicians in terms of the potential harm they can do to society. An inefficient or useless politician should be voted out of office. But one who deliberately lies to the public resulting in serious harm or acts against the public's interest in an egregious fashion deserves whatever the maximum penalty is that our justice system hands out.

Otherwise, we're effectively handing them license to legally redefine "right" and "wrong" in their favor, and that often has the potential to inflict much greater harm than any single corporation on its own.

Re:Not me

[Anonymous Coward]

> What happens if that particular company folds or goes away?

Um, you get off at a different tube stop?

Re:Not me

[macpacheco]

As if the fossil fuels industry is the only power block with politicians in their backpockets.
Don't forget about the military industrial complex, the auto industry.
If the Comcrap and Time Warner didn't have a boatload of politicians in their back pockets they wouldn't dream about this deal.

Re:Not me

[AthanasiusKircher]

You need to assume that a business will first and foremost look after its own interests, which is to make money.

Isn't any corporation composed on individual humans? Don't those individual humans have any responsibility or culpability for wrong-doing?

If I get mad and kill somebody, I go to jail. But if I band together with a lynch mob and go out and kill people as a group, am I absolved because the mob was "looking after its own interests, which is to" kill people?

Perhaps you think I'm being inflammatory. But "make money" is not a morally neutral goal -- it can easily result in serious harm and even deaths to people.

it is not their role to be nice to society, unless we make them.

Why isn't that part of their role? Or -- well, I agree their role may not necessarily be to "be nice to society," but surely part of their role should be not to significantly harm society, no? After all, they only exist as legal fictions created by a government that is enabled by the collective social contract of civilization. If they aren't contributing a net positive impact to society, they aren't serving a purpose for the collective good -- and therefore they should be dissolved.

Why do you wish to absolve collections of people from ethical behavior? As a civilized society, if we would not tolerate that behavior from an individual, it should not be tolerated from a corporation. Otherwise, there is no reason to allow their existence.

Re:Not me

[Jawnn]

The industry I hate the most is the fossil fuels industry Not just because of global warming, but mostly because they control the politicians and stop anything being done about it.

The telecom industry spends, proportionately, far more on it's purchases of lawmakers than any other group. For that reason, I hate them the most.

Re:Not me

[itsenrique]

You sound like a pretty fearful person, who never lived in a big city.

Re:Not me

[Xyrus]

Later the parent discovers that the AGW industry has a larger reach, controls more government bodies, and is screwing over developing nations, under the guise of "helping" them.

Yeah, because I can't count how many times we've gone to war over some other country's solar panels, overthrown democracies to secure their wind power farms for ourselves, and ruthlessly crushed third world nations for their geothermal resources. I mean it's not like Exxon makes more money in one year than all green-power companies combined or anything. If it wasn't for the billions of dollars of tax payer money flowing into the pockets of oil companies as subsidies, why the fossil fuel industry would just shrivel up and die.

Oh, and there is a rainbow colored talking platypus eating raspberry cake behind you. He seems to think you're more disconnected from reality than he is.

Re:Not me

[nblender]

I have a self-righteous friend who walks/cycles everywhere he needs to go. Doesn't own a car/truck.. Happily puts down those who do, etc ... You know the type. It's all fine and dandy until he needs to move a couch, or pickup some lumber, or get to the airport, then his vehicle-owning friends must come to his aid... When we all decide to get together for a beer or a meal, it needs to be near his part of town so he can walk; or if it's somewhere else, he'll arrange for someone to come pick him up.. If no one is able (or willing) to pick him up, he doesn't join in... He misses out (by choice)...

Another point, just because someone drives a big SUV to work, doesn't mean it's a status symbol or what have you. Maybe they have 4 kids and don't want to (or can afford to) have a small car just for commuting. Or maybe they need the vehicle for work because they regularly carry large bulky items for sale or install... I've more and more tried to turn off my generalization engine...

Re:Not me

[lister king of smeg]

Another point, just because someone drives a big SUV to work, doesn't mean it's a status symbol or what have you. Maybe they have 4 kids and don't want to (or can afford to) have a small car just for commuting. Or maybe they need the vehicle for work because they regularly carry large bulky items for sale or install... I've more and more tried to turn off my generalization engine...

They could get a minivan that has better millage then the gas guzzling SUV.

Re:Not me

[jriding]

I love the "Job creator" argument.
If they only kill 3 towns its ok because well, they are job creators. If they only poison 1 states water supply its ok. I mean they make all the jobs for those same people that are now dying due to drinking the water.

If I promise to pay you 500K a year for a job I create for you, is it then ok to randomly kill your family members? I mean I am creating jobs.

Re:Not me

[ehiris]

Do you have any idea how incredibly inefficient walking is in terms of energy consumption?

Factoring in how inefficient food production is, you are only getting about 40 mpg when walking.

https://physics.ucsd.edu/do-th...

Re:Not me

[pla]

Don't those individual humans have any responsibility or culpability for wrong-doing?

Both in legal practice and psychologically - No, they don't. A CEO has to more-or less personally and provably give the order to shoot a busload of orphans before the legal system will impose any sanctions beyond some pittance of a fine against individuals acting under the corporate umbrella. And while Nuremberg may not have accepted "just following orders" as a defense, humans really do think that way - Most people would much rather commit atrocities than lose their job or have their peers think less of them.


But if I band together with a lynch mob and go out and kill people as a group, am I absolved because the mob was "looking after its own interests, which is to" kill people?

Google "Shell Oil Nigeria Murder" for a good perspective on that. They actually outsourced to the local Junta the torture and murder of a local tribe inconveniently living on land Shell wanted to "drill baby drill", and skated away scot-free - The USSC has even gone so far out on a limb to protect its corporate masters that they outright shielded Shell from civil lawsuits by Nigerian refugees in the US.


Make no mistake, I fully agree with you in principle, and would like to see the CEO of RDS (along with many, many others just as guilty of similar crimes) sent to Oklahoma to try one of their early morning experimental drug cocktails. But the reality of our current situation has corporations essentially immune from most legal consequences by definition; an unwillingness to go after the humans actually responsible; and a human wetware flaw that means yes, you and I would probably do the same thing in their shoes.

Re:Not me

[stealth_finger]

You need to assume that a business will first and foremost look after its own interests, which is to make money.

(Most) businesses get their money from customers, happy customers come back and spend more, dissatisfied customers go else where. You can only get away with being cunts to your customers when they need what you're selling and no one else or very few competitors are.

Re:Not me

[JaredOfEuropa]

I'm not talking about criminal wrong-doing; if a corporation engages in activity we wouldn't tolerate from an individual, or causes significant harm to society, it should be held accountable, as should the individuals who made the decision to break the law. What I mean is making moral choices within the bounds of the law.

First of all, a corporation cannot make those, it's the leadership. And faced with a choice between something that benefits the community they are in vs. their shareholders, they could argue that the right moral choice is to go for shareholder value, since they are directly (and by law) charged with looking after the interests of those shareholders, not the community at large. If you, as a CEO, have the opportunity to shift your earnings to an overseas holding so you'll end up paying less corporate tax, should you not do so to benefit your shareholders? And if we do not want that sort of behaviour from corporations, we should not expect corporations hold themselves to some ethical standards higher than the law, we should set those standards into law, and/or exercise our rights as customers and shareholders.

Corporations will follow the ethical decisions made by their leadership, or else hold themselves only to the minimum social / ethical requirements demanded by the law, the shareholders, and society inasmuch it influences their ability to do business. It is true that the world would be a better place if the people who ran those corporations would aspire to higher ethical standards, but that is true of people in any capacity, and a pipe dream. That's why we have laws.

Noncompetition

[Travis Mansbridge]

It's a joke when Comcast uses the claim that TWC covers separate parts of the country as justification for their merger when this should just make it obvious that they were never competing in the first place.

Funny, they're not my first choices

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Hateful industries include lawyers, politicians, washing machine repairmen, insurance companies, heating engineers, telemarketers, car salesmen...

Surely they come before ISPs and TV providers.

Re:Funny, they're not my first choices

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is lawyering an industry

Since it became profitable to make bullshit claims and settle.

The lawyer division of RIAA is only flimsily connected to the music industry. Primarily it is part of the lawyering industry.
Same with patent trolls.

Re:Funny, they're not my first choices

[flyneye]

Music and Movie industries are up there at the top.
Music industry is completely vampiric , with NO known benefits for anyone except themselves. If they died today, the music you hear would only get better, in spite of the scare stories to the contrary.
Movie industry is continuously the same old shit, recycled from B&W all the way back to the silent era. You could say the special effects are better, but that would be the special effects industry, who also work for television. Nope, nothing new or interesting here, at best they will soak a storyline off some author and hope no one notices it to be a recycled premise from earlier authors. Hard to believe they want the price of a ticket or a rental for that crap.

Re:Funny, they're not my first choices

[Jason Levine]

The reason I hate the cable providers more than the music/movie industries is that it is harder to boycott the cable providers. You can cut the cord and get rid of cable TV, but if you want Internet access, you might only have access through your local cable company. (Like I do.) So you are locked into paying whatever your cable provider says you will pay for whatever Internet access speed they decide to give you. Don't like it? Go without Internet (or go back to dial up if you still have a landline or use the much more expensive wireless). There are indie options for music and movies. There isn't an "indie Internet access."

Re:Funny, they're not my first choices

[pr0fessor]

Music industry is completely vampiric , with NO known benefits for anyone except themselves. If they died today, the music you hear would only get better, in spite of the scare stories to the contrary.

I listen to a lot of unsigned bands and my brother plays in an unsigned band that paid for studio time to record an EP that's in various online and streaming media services {amazon, itunes, google play, spotify}. When they play a gig they always have t-shirts, stickers, or any other merchandise they can get their hands on because that is how they make their money. {not much money enough to cover cost and record that next EP eventually}

The internet and PC has really broken down the barrier to entry that once existed. Take a little time to check a few music sites like reverbnation or unsigned and you'll find that the bands range from crap to I can't believe they are not already signed. You may just find your next favorite band is a bar band that paid for pro studio time.

 

RIAA/MPAA should top the list

[Katatsumuri]

I would put the telecom second and the media distribution mafia first.

It is pathetic, true, how the telecom providers have been selling a commodity service on mass scale for 20+ years, yet the pricing and service quality are on "novelty" levels or worse. Your cable bill has no good reason to be higher than that (local) phone bill 30 years ago. One of the reasons for the pathetic prices are the unreasonably high media licensing fees and unbreakable channel bundles. The cable companies then cut costs on everything else, which gives you multiple week waiting times to connect, half-hour wait times on support lines, and clueless staff.

And the media mafia also criminalizes everyone for downloading a few songs on P2P and threatens with lawsuits.

Re:RIAA/MPAA should top the list

[Shoten]

Well, heads up there...because TV/cable providers are major media producers AND distributors. NBC? Universal Studios? Comcast owns them...they're Comcast. Time Warner Cable? Just take off the "Cable" and you'll have a clue. And when you're talking about the MPAA, you're talking about an association of...movie production houses (like Universal and Time Warner). Granted, they aren't in the music industry, but I don't blame them...the music industry is still trying to figure out which end is up from the combination of iTunes/Amazon's upending of their distribution channel and the after effects of them deciding to sue their own customers like a bunch of idiots.

Since 1948, there's been a ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of United States v. Paramount Pictures that concerned whether or not Paramount's vertical integration (movie production, movie distribution, movie theaters...with exclusive rights down the pipe) constituted a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Indeed, it turned out that it was, and as a result there has been a long-standing prohibition on that degree of integration from that day forward. Now, it's easy to just point and say, "Hey! If Comcast makes movies and shows movies on their own channels, that's a violation!" It isn't, the way the ruling exists, because Comcast also shows movies from other sources as well. But the needle has been moving in that direction, obviously. But in a way, this isn't a new problem either, and there's hope that it can be addressed.

So Much To Choose From

[Guy From V]

We have so much bullshit in our gentrified business community, how could any of us pick just one area we think is the worst?

Competition is effectively illegal

[nctritech]

I can't open my own ISP. If I do (let's say I want to run a fiber-based ISP), I will face many legal hurdles simply because that's the nature of the business; one may need to rent space on towers or get right-of-way permits from the town and the whole mess will be overseen by the public utilities commissioner of the state I'm in.

That's all normal ISP business stuff, but the giants have so much power that they are guaranteed to put me out of business through lawsuits. They shroud anything that they don't like in a giant neon sheet of "UNFAIR COMPETITION" and bury the little guy in legal red tape and paperwork. Little guys cannot win the battles of attrition in our legal system against gigantic corporations as it is, but these bastards have managed to lobby so hard that the law is heavily on their side as well. If I get financial assistance from a local government to build my ISP, I'll get shut down because of "unfair competition" since there are laws in many states now making municipal broadband de facto illegal to run and the funding could be construed as attempting to skirt those laws.

There is no competition in broadband services today because the largest companies have slanted the laws so hard in their favor that all competition is legally shut out.

Re:Competition is effectively illegal

[nctritech]

That doesn't address the problem of starting an ISP. I don't have an interest in buying an existing ISP, I have an interest in starting a new one.

Re:Competition is effectively illegal

[Rich0]

You know nothing of the industry. There are hundreds of ISPs for sale in the United States RIGHT NOW. Go buy one. It'll cost you a few million for a small one.

We're talking about residential broadband. I doubt that more than 0.1% of the population is served by anybody other than one of the major phone or cable companies.

If you're talking about businesses buying dedicated lines then that is a different story. In such volumes the last mile problem isn't so much of a problem - you can just run a single line to them and bill them $10k for it, and the business doesn't care because they're paying that much every month. If you try to offer residential broadband with a $10k start-up fee you'll never get a single customer, and it isn't any cheaper to run a cable to a residence than to a skyscraper.

Oh, and I'm sure there are resellers out there who offer some kind of value-add on top of one of the big phone/cable companies, and they just pay the phone/cable company to use their existing infrastructure.

why aren't the big ISPs like Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T buying up all these ISPs?

Because they aren't in the same business. The ISPs you talk of are probably in actual competition. If my employer got a call that the ISP wanted to raise rates by 10% at the next contract renewal, they'd get to go through the usual procurement dog and pony show all over again. At significant volumes the up-front costs to switch are fairly low. The professional negotiators would also ensure the contracts are neutral at worst, but most likely slanted towards my employer. Big corporations don't sign contracts of adhesion.

The big telecoms do get into that business as well, but the rates are fairly competitive. When the data volumes are significant they don't really have any last-mile advantages either - even the local phone company will probably need to run a dedicated line as there is unlikely to be sufficient capacity already on the poles. At best they only have advantages of scale.

Re:Competition is effectively illegal

[VortexCortex]

There is no competition in broadband services today because the largest companies have slanted the laws so hard in their favor that all competition is legally shut out.

You know nothing of the industry. There are hundreds of ISPs for sale in the United States RIGHT NOW.

I have hardware in my garage that I can use to build a free mesh network using shortwave radios. I started working on it in the BBS days. There are no unregulated slices of public spectrum available to run it on, even though spectrum belongs to the public. It's illegal for me to test it beyond 30ft, outside of my garage's Faraday cage which is the only place I'm allowed to tinker without the regulatory captured FCC throwing me in fucking jail. Now, how much do we not know of "the industry"? HAL-PC was an ISP in my neighborhood I used, they resold AT&T, and thus their prices and service quality aren't much better -- They're subject to the same sorts of throttling shenanigans everyone else is otherwise we'd all resell Comcast and AT&T much closer to the cost to actually rent the hardware and put the big bastards out of business or at least force them to compete -- But we can't do that, because Internet Service Providers aren't classified as Title II communication service providers. But now we're digressing into Net Neutrality Territory.

Go buy one. It'll cost you a few million for a small one.

You're talking out your fucking ass, moron. The dinky dying local computer club can afford one for far less. Regardless of bullshit tap-ready wired providers, I can obliviate the need to pay more than a one time fee for an antenna, (software defined) radio, and caching server -- It's basically self organizing Fidonet using always on frequency hopping signal strength moderating (for channel reuse) radio modems (which escape the one-to-many problems of wired networks via the nature of EM fields) -- Except that wireless ISPs fight to ensure the common people themselves don't have ANY unlicensed spectrum to compete in and so unlicensed Store-and-Forward packet radio is illegal, even on the family band... So, yeah, the emboldened statement above remains true in so many ways it's not funny. Meshnets can and do work, but they've never been given a chance. This shit's not even capitalism anymore, it's corporatism.

Re:so? americans always hate some company

[Anonymous Coward]

Your main point aside, Comcast's most recent quarterly profit margin was 10.75% and Apple's was 22.40%. Why would you bother guessing at things when they're so easily researched?

Re:so? americans always hate some company

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more along the lines of:

"I started paying for cable back in the late 70s to early 80s, with the intention that my monthly bill was a replacement for having to watch all those stupid advertisements-- exactly as advertised-- with the perk that I would have more reliable and higher quality of service."

which is being replaced with:

"Today, I pay over 100$/month for 200+ channels, of which I only watch 15 on average, STILL have to watch advertisements, and have inferior video quality to over the air broadcasts-- which come in for free. I have better quality of service, advertisement free, and with more flexible control over what I can watch with the streaming services, which if I were to subscribe to the top 3 (Netflix, Amazon prime, Hulu Plus) is still only 1/3 the price of cable-- If I combine all three, with a competitively priced ISP, I pay about the same as I pay for just cable- Have internet, have all the shows and movies I actually want, none of the shit I dont want (including adverts in most cases), and have better quality video. Yet, these cable giants keep lobbying to keep abusing me, and to try to remove these options from me using a combination of Media Provider + Media transport mergers (Comcast + Time warner, et al) coupled with erosions on fundamental practices that preserve competition (net neutrality, et al). Fuck them!"

It isn't "I hate them because I pay them money." It *IS* "I hate them because they conspire to fuck me over, and to prevent competition from superior offerings, and dont give a fuck about me other than how much money they can suck from my wallet."

Thanks for playing.

2 Garbage Trucks Colliding...

[ameline]

When I read of mergers like this, I imagine two large garbage trucks colliding at speed -- the result is inevitably twisted smoking debris strewn wide, and oh God, the smell.

I find, as a metaphor for large mergers, I have yet to find a more accurate one.

Really? Who did they survey?

[damn_registrars]

Number one for me is the insurance industry. Health insurance, especially; although auto and life insurance aren't much better. They are all giant legalized Ponzi schemes, IMHO. In 2010 the health insurance industry demonstrated how much power they have over the federal government when they managed to make us all obligate customers as an alleged mechanism of "reform". I could go on about how an insurance company that I had about a decade ago tried to drive me bankrupt with practices that are far beyond immoral.

Number two for me (literally and figuratively) are private impound lots. There are some cities (I happen to work in one) where auto theft is essentially legal if you happen to be a private impound lot. The amount of power those animals have over regular people is disgusting, they basically have an unlimited income stream that they can open and close at will.

I don't care for my cable company, but I love them in comparison to either of those.

Great timing

[wjcofkc]

I have Time Warner and about an hour ago I woke up to an outage. Needless to say it has been cleared up, but outages are routine and expected with their "service". I learned a long time ago that calling their customer service\tech support is futile. Also, I barely break five-megabits down. Unfortunately there has been no alternative and I have been stuck with them for fifteen-years. I guess you can suck that bad and not care if you are a monopoly. Two-days ago I received an email from Google letting me know that Google Fiber will be available to me pretty soon. Yesterday large spools of fiber optic cables showed up on my street. There is one right next to my house. Despite my misgivings about letting Google provide me with internet access, I am absolutely going with them. Time Warner has been flipping out since the roll out started in my city last year, yet no aspect of their service has improved. I am convinced that they have been a monopoly for so long that they literally don't know how to compete. Good riddance to them.

worst websites around

[RackinFrackin]

My only experience is with charter. Their service itself is usually pretty good, but I hate their website. You can't find straightforward information on what individual services cost, and even finding a channel listing is difficult. On more than one occasion I've searched for services available at my house--where they make me enter my exact address--and their website tells me that they do not service my area.

It really frustrates me that the companies that run the internet don't care enough or aren't required to make basic information about their services available.

Re:so? americans always hate some company

[Rich0]

that's the point of cable, lots of niche channels where you only watch a few that you like

From a customer standpoint, the point of cable is that I want to watch the History channel, and it isn't available OTA.

Maybe if you're a cable exec the point of cable is to find ways to charge people for services they don't want. That is more the point of the guy who runs up to your car and washes your window while you're stopped at a light.

The only way cable companies can get away with it is that there is no competition. If the local Walmart forced everybody to buy at least 24 different products every time they walked in the door they'd go out of business. Amazon sells like gangbusters by giving people honest reviews, decent prices, a catalog that includes just about everything that is sold anywhere, and a few options for paying for the shipping. Real businesses have to strip out the non-value-adds to stay in business. Utilities that are allowed to run like conventional businesses become scam operations.

Don't Like 'Em? Don't Do Business With Them

[rally2xs]

First, oppose laws and homeowners associations and landlords and zoning that don't provide the ability to put up a TV antenna, and I mean a big one so's you can get TV signals from different cities. Then, put one up. No monthly charges ever again, and you can fix anything that goes wrong with it all by yourself. Get your movies over the innernetz and by mail via Netflix, and no, you don't NEED to watch Game of Thrones live as soon as it is aired. You can get the internet via a new satellite company called Excede, the only drawback to that being that it isn't responsive enough to do gaming over the internet. But you can download a whale of a lot of info. Problem solved - no more cable.

How about?

[Gonoff]

I have observed that you also are very enthusiastic about your hatred of your phone companies.
If half the stories I hear are true, it is totally horrendous!

Re:so? americans always hate some company

[Shoten]

I think you have a point...but in this case I think the hate is well-founded.

I'm not the sort to jump onto the "Hate Google...they're evil!" bandwagon. I don't think that oil companies are inherently evil for doing what they do...we'd be screwed without their product, after all, and we're the ones demanding their production. And I happen to think that Netflix is really, really cool. But I've had phone, Internet, cable service through both cable providers and more traditional telecom providers, and also seen how things went with satellite TV for a family member. And to me, when I see commercials for those three verticals (cable, telecom, satellite tv) it looks like three pedophiles arguing over who would make the best kindergarten teacher.

When you look at the state of these industries in our nation and compare them to the rest of the developed Western world, we are behind, seriously so. And when pressed for how they would address this, the leaders of those industries came up with a plan that would bring us to 2008-level parity...in 2045. Yes, they said it would take nearly four decades for them to reach the point where Europe was, 6 years ago.

I wish there was a way to "home school" my TV and Internet access...

Microsoft NEVER owned Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

MS invested in Comcast years ago and then they sold their stake - years ago.

Break them up, don't combine them

[AnontheDestroyer]

It's sad that the state of affairs in this country has us discussing the MERGER of two hated monopolies, rather than busting them up into overlapping pieces like they should.

Re:so? americans always hate some company

[alen]

the company that owns The History Channel also runs a lot of other channels and tells the cable companies they have to license all of them or none

Re:Work visa

[Alioth]

1. Find a candidate list of countries.
2. Find visa requirements for your shortlist. If you meet the requirements, skip step 3.
3. Work to meet the visa requirements if you don't meet them yet
4. Apply for visa.
5. Move to country.

Re:so? americans always hate some company

[PhoenixFlare]

Just to nitpick/be pedantic - Hulu Plus is not ad-free. I signed up for it back over the winter, and promptly canceled a few days into the free trial after seeing that the commercials were the same as watching OTA, if not worse.

And to make it even more bothersome, they couldn't be bothered to use a feed that just streamed the show with ads inserted after the fact, they more or less just straight rebroadcasted a station about 2 hours away and included their local ads.

I'm sure there's some sort of technical or monetary reason for that, but it annoyed the hell out of me.