Worst Company in America?

Originally posted by Brandon Brendall, the thief:
Personally, I think it would be great if Comcast did that. It would be great for lower income families, and great PR for a company that takes shit left and right otherwise. But I'm not running Comcast, nor do I own any of their stock; I don't know their margins or bottom line, and I'm not familiar enough with their capabilities to know if they could offer subsidized service.

But for the monopoly, a lot of folks would vote by not getting their service. But what can you do when they are all you can get? And just we're clear, this whole discussion started by you saying that you were happy with the service you got. You can do more to make this happen if you really wanted to.

Originally posted by Brandon Brendall, the thief:
in this case, wouldn't that mean more cable on the lines or in the ground, or do these lines have the capabilities to share different service providers without degredation of QOS?

Nobody would lay coaxial cable any longer, but I can assure you that Comcat has gone out of their way to stop telephony companies from laying Fiber in major metropolitan areas. You wanna know why you don't have FiOs in DC? It's not because verizon doesn't think it's profitable, I can assure you of that.

Originally posted by Brandon Brendall, the thief:
Also, in regards to municipal wireless internet service, didn't those fail in the larger markets (like Philly, San Fran, Chicago and Houston) because the cities didn't want to put up the required public investments to undertake such large projects? I seem to remember they all kind of dumped it on Earthlink, who then ran into all sorts or technical issues and couldn't compete with established ISP's who already have their infastructure set and/or paid off. Since providing the service isn't "free" it would still have to be paid for, and the cities didn't want to pay for it. I don't doubt that Comcast would fight it, but I'm also pretty sure that Comcast wansn't the primary villan in the failure of the municipal wifi projects.

This is where you're most wrong. Who do you think introduced the bills in the state legislature to block municipalities from offering internet service? Comcast and Verizon went to their state legislators in PA (and at&t in CA) to convince them to block municipalities from offering internet service, free or otherwise.

The SF model with google was beautiful, and yes there were politcal hangups, but the biggest fight came from telephony companies and cable companies blocking new compeitition. I expect more from a libertarian.

Originally posted by vansmack:
This is where you're most wrong. Who do you think introduced the bills in the state legislature to block municipalities from offering internet service? Comcast and Verizon went to their state legislators in PA (and at&t in CA) to convince them to block municipalities from offering internet service, free or otherwise.

on the other hand, at&t was responsible for getting a statewide cable franchise law passed. . .

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
on the other hand, at&t was responsible for getting a statewide cable franchise law passed. . .

I've been waiting for you to chime in….

And why did at&t do that (and let's not forget that Comcast was opposed to this law)?

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
on the other hand, at&t was responsible for getting a statewide cable franchise law passed. . .

I've been waiting for you to chime in….

And why did at&t do that (and let's not forget that Comcast was opposed to this law)?

sorry, been busy all morning doing the lord's work. . .

anyway, at&t didn't want to deal with the plethora of municipalities in order to offer competing cable service. . .in other words, they did not want to be subject to extortion from municipalities, and instead, put their faith in the wisdom of the state public utilities commission.

If that were true Comcast would have done that (1) years ago and (2) supported it.

The real reason is that they didn't want to fight Comcast, Time Warner, Adelphia, etc. in every city they wanted to roll out their U-Verse.

Originally posted by vansmack:
If that were true Comcast would have done that (1) years ago and (2) supported it.

The real reason is that they didn't want to fight Comcast, Time Warner, Adelphia, etc. in every city they wanted to roll out their U-Verse.

i don't disagree with that. i think i said something about competing with cable.

however, the fact that comcast (and other cable companies) DID negotiate franchises with muncipalities is in itself a reason to avoid a statewide franchise- they've got sunk costs to recover from local customers, which could turn into stranded costs. . .so, they have their own incentive to not want a statewide franchise because of those costs which they may not be able to recover.

The majority of that cable was laid in the early 80's. How much longer do these cable co's need to recoup their costs (and I would love to see an itemization of Comcasts profits vs. capital costs to lay the cable) and at what cost to the consumer?

Originally posted by vansmack:
The majority of that cable was laid in the early 80's. How much longer do these cable co's need to recoup their costs (and I would love to see an itemization of Comcasts profits vs. capital costs to lay the cable) and at what cost to the consumer?

what i'm getting at is that comcast was a government approved monopoly provider of cable- they have an interest to protect that status. for example, a captive rate base would be a benefit to them, and allow them to recover whatever capital costs are still recoverable.

i don't know what the depreciation rate is for cable, or what other capital costs are still being incurred.

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
comcast was a government approved monopoly provider of cable- they have an interest to protect that status.

You forgot "with shareholders to please"

You know, this could have been an interesting discussion about the relative merits, or demerits, of one corporation versus another. Some are definitely better public citizens than others, and there are different ways of assessing that. It's never as simple as "all corporations are good" (Brandon) or "all corporations are bad" (some green types.)

It could have been interesting, until Brandon jumped in with his ideological, reality-deprived douchery.

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
Alternative Thread Title:

Cliched List of Companies That Hipsters Hate Because They Are A Bunch of Self-Absorbed Slackers Who Could Never Make It in The Real World.

With all due respect, have you ever consider that those who chose those companies on the Worst Company In America Contest were former customers and employees? Here 2 things I learned in business courses I took in college.

1. Bad news will spread faster than good news
2. Businesses spend more time, energy and money trying to regain former customers than new customers.

I used be a Bank of America customer until I discovered how much money I was losing to some fees.

I used to have comcast until electrical surge left me with no cable, and the bad customer service cause the switch to Verizon Fios. I'm just following the old adage of voting with your wallet!

Originally posted by They call me Doctor Doom.:
You know, this could have been an interesting discussion about the relative merits, or demerits, of one corporation versus another. Some are definitely better public citizens than others, and there are different ways of assessing that. It's never as simple as "all corporations are good" (Brandon) or "all corporations are bad" (some green types.)

It could have been interesting, until Brandon jumped in with his ideological, reality-deprived douchery.

I don't understand why anyone's opinion would keep you or anybody else wishing to discuss this topic from now to eternity. I guess that's the douchebag Libertarianism in me you seem to despise so.

Funny how humans have different opinions and philosophies. Funnier still, is how far under the skin of some people it gets when people think different than they do. The horror.

For the record, I think alot of it has been interesting. Why you or others haven't chimed in more on what you wanted to say is a puzzle to me.

Originally posted by SPARX:
I don't understand why anyone's opinion would keep you or anybody else wishing to discuss this topic from now to eternity.

I agree. If we all had the same opinions this would be a very short discussion.

Originally posted by Erinaceous Sonickus:
If you refuse to to believe that sometimes a company gets ahead in the marketplace by shorting customers, stealing competitors ideas/marketing plans/trade secrets or providing less than desirable working condition and/or customer service on a regular basis, than theres no point in even discussing this with you.

This is pretty funny coming from a guy who publicly admitted to routinely stealing from one of his employers (record store). I guess you expect that the rest of the world should have the morals that you don't.

As for the other arguments in this thread:

I will agree that Comcast sucks. Not only do they provide crappy service, they do so under government approved monopoly conditions.

WalMart, paypal, eBay, etc… If you don't like them, don't patronize them. It really is that simple.

There are plenty of people who hold their nose while shopping at WalMart; but just by shopping there they are showing what their real priorities are. You can hate everything WalMart stands for, but your beef isn't really with WalMart, it's with your fellow Americans (and Chinese, and Mexicans, and…).

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
This is pretty funny coming from a guy who publicly admitted to routinely stealing from one of his employers (record store). I guess you expect that the rest of the world should have the morals that you don't.

careful!!! I never stole anything that was actually for sale at the store. Promo material that was already displayed then taken down to go "back to the label" was all i ever took.

i admit it was stealing but lets make sure we're clear….this was not cutting into the record store OR the record labels profits (as i never actually sold any of the merch).

and actually, yes, businesses should be held to some higher standards than $7/hr workers. mostly.

Originally posted by Brandon Brendall, the thief:
But under this reasoning, can't we say that just because you know of a few examples where PayPal has harmed some consumers, it doesn't mean that they are "harmful" in the grand scheme of things?

I already agreed with you on this point. And i already pointed out that you're taking that list a BIT too seriously.

It seems that you are the one who is refusing to ackowledge that, despite the misgivings that come from the basic fact that no one is perfect, these companies have done far more good for all of our lives than they have done harm. I mean if PayPal or eBay have done more harm, then they simply wouldn't exist.

Ohhh, so under this logic than no bad companies exist! Because any company that does bad stuff ceases to exist?

Thats very "rose colored glasses" of you. and you know what. I like that way of thinking. I try to be positive about most stuff too. Its really just a damn internet list by a bunch of griping consumers! But then again, i'm a socialist Canadian so i hate capitalism in the first place.

Is that why poor people smell like sour milk? Because they don't have running water to be able to wash?

Hussein Obama - give the poor electricity, water and cable then send the bill to the rich.


McCain - What poor people?

yes

Originally posted by Erinaceous Sonickus:

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
This is pretty funny coming from a guy who publicly admitted to routinely stealing from one of his employers (record store). I guess you expect that the rest of the world should have the morals that you don't.

careful!!! I never stole anything that was actually for sale at the store. Promo material that was already displayed then taken down to go "back to the label" was all i ever took.

i admit it was stealing but lets make sure we're clear….this was not cutting into the record store OR the record labels profits (as i never actually sold any of the merch).

and actually, yes, businesses should be held to some higher standards than $7/hr workers. mostly.

You weren't stealing it…you were "sharing" it. :roll:

no ADM in this game? huh?