Contracts

Kakumei

The Wolf of Aincrad
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The ones that I am specifically referring to are like Phone Service and Cable/Satellite and Internet contracts.

I feel like its a way for companies to lock you into a service that you realize isn't as good as you want, or continue to take money from you even if you can't really handle the bill payments anymore.

If your service is actually that good, then why do you need to force a person to pay for it for a minimum amount of time?

I think that if people fought hard enough against this crony capitalistic type of practice, people would be free of these sort of contracts.

What do you think about them?
 
I feel like its a way for companies to lock you into a service that you realize isn't as good as you want, or continue to take money from you even if you can't really handle the bill payments anymore.
This is exactly what it is. A way to guarantee money over a certain period of time. Corporations like consistent income, it looks good and it stabilizes their financial position. :ferret:
I think that if people fought hard enough against this crony capitalistic type of practice, people would be free of these sort of contracts.
Unlikely. Telecoms have so much power, that they're one of the leading donators to Super-PACS in the US. If you could overthrow the reign of the Telecoms, you could do the same to the oil barons. The only alternative is to always take contract-free services, but they're typically more expensive than contracts to encourage people to continue to choose contracts. It also becomes irrelevant in the face of having limited or no choices. IE: Monopolization or duopolization.

For example: I get my Internet from a company named Shaw, in Canada. They don't do contracts, so I can leave them whenever I want. However, the only other ISP in my area is Telus, and they do contracts between 2-3 years in length. So if I ever leave Shaw, my only other choice is Telus, and vice versa. Collusion up here in the telecom, cable, and cellular markets is so common, that nobody batted an eye when two of our four major telecom companies--Shaw & Rogers--banded together to create a competitor service to Netflix. The predatory practices of telecoms up here are so bad in some areas that it's more comparable to a privatized tax that targets the poor and goes straight to the rich, rather than a competitive service.

So, basically, nah, we're all fucked until we find a way to break the telecoms by law or by government. There's no way the free market can correct this without causing some serious damage to Internet infrastructure.
 
Another reason why you filthy across-the-ponders shouldn't have dumped all our lovely tea in the Boston Harbour, you ask me.

In the UK there's so many fucking providers they're all trying to woo you into joining their service. Shit's great, mate.
 
Another reason why you filthy across-the-ponders shouldn't have dumped all our lovely tea in the Boston Harbour, you ask me.

In the UK there's so many fucking providers they're all trying to woo you into joining their service. Shit's great, mate.
Yeah, but do any of them go higher than 5 MBPS? Because I have an ex boyfriend who lived in Cambridge and said that all the net there is super slow.

Japanese have less providers than Americans do, but they are all cheap and average about 20mbps up to 60. I think 30-40 is average in America. Not sure though..
 
Mine averages at around 10MB/s. And I live in rural-ass Scotland. Move to somewhere like London or Glasgow and that shit's even higher.

ACCEPT OUR INHERENT SUPERIORITY AND REPENT FOR BREAKING AWAY, FILTHY COLONIALS.
 
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Yes. It is to lock you in. That is obvious, It's a way for them to achieve a stable business model and set up monopolization. Luckily, Like with the Uk, sweden does not have this problem. Our anti-monopolization policies+BBeing a relatively small and concentrated population allows for a llot of competiton. With internet anyways. our telecom is mainly relugated to TV/Cellphone services and there it's three "Giants" vying for power. Again, the second they even look at conspiring to cartel and monopol, Swedish goverment dickslaps them. Just like we did our old gas companies here. Not that it kept gas from going up anyways, but hey. That's oil for ya.
 
Yeah, but I feel like (at least in America), the government enables it. : /
It does, because your government is bought and used by corporate to puppet whatever laws they want into power. Like considering corporations people in terms of rights, but not in terms of consequences for breaking the law.

The American people should be far more hostile towards corporations than they are. It's sad, because Orwell was wrong and Huxley was right, and saying that over and over causes no stir from the public as they fight over pointless things. A thousand and one things to be offended by, and the slow erosion of our economic liberties is not one of them. I guess it's because it doesn't have a catchy catch phrase.
Mine averages at around 10MB/s.
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I have three more Internet packages faster than this that I could choose if I wanted to spend more money. Speed isn't the issue, price gouging is. :ferret:
 
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Glorius glorius Swedish ISP's.


we might be fucking up our wealthcare by taxcuts and shit. But I'll always have internet...
 
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I'd love speeds like that, it's true. But I'd have to live somewhere like Edinburgh. Which has people in it.

You see my conundrum.
 
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I'd love speeds like that, it's true. But I'd have to live somewhere like Edinburgh. Which has people in it.

You see my conundrum.
I do. I lived on a rural ass island for two years. Had it not been that Isolation is the enemy of Depressives everywhere, I'd stay there. Granted. Being sweden, we still had fibre there.
 
ACCEPT OUR INHERENT SUPERIORITY AND REPENT FOR BREAKING AWAY, FILTHY COLONIALS.
Pft. Japanese master race. >.>

Gosh, letting those words come from my fingers sounds horrible.. XD

It does, because your government is bought and used by corporate to puppet whatever laws they want into power. Like considering corporations people in terms of rights, but not in terms of consequences for breaking the law.
I think its the government buying corporations. Government benefits little from corporations, but corporations benefit quite a bit when you gave government at your back. Monopolies can't actually exist without the involvement of government. xD
 
Pft. Japanese master race. >.>

Gosh, letting those words come from my fingers sounds horrible.. XD


I think its the government buying corporations. Government benefits little from corporations, but corporations benefit quite a bit when you gave government at your back. Monopolies can't actually exist without the involvement of government. xD
Are you serius? Do you not see the inherent flaw in this logic. Goverments benefit little, then why would they buy corperations. No. Corperations funnel huge amounts of money into politicians. Look up what a super-pac is. They buy politicians. The money from their lobbying groups go towards making the goverment do what THEY want. Nothing of what you made any sense. The company knows that with the goverment at their back, they fuck over people in peace. Thus they buy politicians, aka, the Goverment.

Look at Tobacco. Look at Big Oil. Look at what Citizens United did to your country. Look at the super-pacs. Educate yourself.
 
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Capitalism was made for corporations. Corporations give funding to the government and their projects so usually the government turns a blind eye.

There has been a drastic change in cable usage these past few years thanks to Hulu and Netflix. People prefer the affordability and flexibility along with the not being stuck in a contract which is causing a problem for cable companies. There has been talks of increasing the bill for Internet usage, forcing people into tv/phone/
 
These are the reasons why I do not sign up for phone contracts. @___@ Sometimes I forget to add airtime to my phone, but I am not about to sign some expensive contract with a shitty server. And then have to PAY THEM to leave them if the service sucks.
 
It used to be 10ms, 50 down and 75 up. Two week outage and now they say they FIXED IT.

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I still stay at home, so stuff like internet and phone contracts aren't something I handle/take care of yet.

But when I do, I plan to avoid those contract's that lock you in like a plague.
Like other's already described, it's a trap made to funnel money out of you.
Though, note I also avoid having even a single credit card like it's the plague because of how it's basically spending money you don't have, which leads to debt, which leaves to spending more money you don't have etc... It's not pretty.

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These are the reasons why I do not sign up for phone contracts. @___@ Sometimes I forget to add airtime to my phone, but I am not about to sign some expensive contract with a shitty server. And then have to PAY THEM to leave them if the service sucks.

Metro pcs has no contract but pretty good service. Their highest phone bill is 60 bucks a month with each plan giving you unlimited call/text/Internet and you only have to buy the phone when you open a new account. If you decide to leave, you can without even telling them and start a new account whenever you want with no issues o.o.

Cricket and Boost mobile are similar.
 
Mine averages at around 10MB/s. And I live in rural-ass Scotland. Move to somewhere like London or Glasgow and that shit's even higher.

ACCEPT OUR INHERENT SUPERIORITY AND REPENT FOR BREAKING AWAY, FILTHY COLONIALS.
Don't tell me how to live my life, limey scum. Also. I get 8 in Montana, like .5 here in Arkansas. Thank god I'm leaving Arkansas as soon as I graduate trucker school.