Will anyone actually buy this argument?
Early termination fees are not that horrible. They can give you a monthly cost where some of the costs for installing it might be distributed over they contact period. Fine and ok
But i should still be able to cancel my contract without jumping through 11 loops and queues.
If you sign up for a given contract, that’s what you have agreed upon. It sucks if you only have one option and they can set a ridiculous price. So if you want to regulate pricing, that’s a different matter. Cancelling is something else altogether.
“installing”
You mean when they send someone out to flip the switch and then come look at the TV screen to make sure the switch worked? You know my ISP doesn’t even send someone out anymore. They just do it remotely with me on the phone.
You mean the installation which was provided for free as a “limited special offer” for new members but is actually already accounted for in the price?
What costs to install equipment? Most homes are already wired for their services. The lines they roll out to new users are usually subsidized by taxes and running coax into a house is not that expensive.
Doesn’t stop them from charging.
If you sign up for a given contract
Listen, it says clear as day down here in the fine print that I get a pound of flesh closest to your heart. I don’t see what you’re complaining about, a contract is a contract.
Whoops. There’s a problem with the title. I fixed it.
Oh look. The “We’ll hurt people a different way if you stop us from hurting them this way!” argument.
I wonder who else has made that argument? Oh yeah the Mafia and Cartels.
You know what’s also nice? Bribes to the regulating officials. Junkets. Free samples. Fancy dinners. Golf games. Promises of no-show jobs if their political career tanks.
Some doctors gladly overprescribe opioids (or bad SSRIs like Seroquel) for a few free lunches from a pharma spokesperson hottie.
People with political power are cheap.
It’s why the rest of us have that lean and hungry look.
You know, I can’t speak for the baby bells or other industries and definitely not politicos, but I’ve never understood that conspiracy theory about doctors getting money from Big Pharma. I by no means endorse Skrelli bros but I’ve been a doctor for a decade and while I do take advantage of free lunches whenever I can get them, I just prescribe what I want to and I don’t get any money whenever I do so. Most of the time I just heckle the company throughout the lunch and don’t use their product. Seroquel helps a lot of people and while I don’t prescribe it, it’s basically the Kleenex or Scotch tape of antidepressants and nobody gets any special kick backs when they write it, they know their patients are just getting it from India over the internet anyway or CVS/DR/Walgreens/Rite Aid just swaps it for the generic. inb4 studies showing slight biases towards companies you got a free pen from, I still don’t get any kickbacks. No matter what I do the fake blonde with fake nails and lashes shows up faithfully to get my office staff Panera or Chick-fil-A. It’s pennies to them and I usually skip cause I’m trying to avoid carbs.
You’re not most doctors. Your a doctor. Also bribes and propaganda can affect you whether consciously or not. My own doctor of twenty years (now retired) only took pharma submissions through regular channels.
Seroquel came to mind because I personally witnessed someone who suffered from dystonia as a side effect of Seroquel, months before the class action that the side effect was understated (or misrepresented) when it was being tested for FDA approval.
That said, the lunches-for-overprescription pattern was discovered and highlighted during investigations into the opioid epidemic in the United States, in which, yes, a lot of lunches were bought by Purdue pharmacy representatives, and yes, a lot of correlating doctors over-presribed OxyContin, and whether or not it’s a matter of neglect, laziness or willful malice to exploit the inflated medical market and poor Americans, the opioid crisis continues to this day, with 109,600 Americans dying from opioid overdoses in 2023.
I can cite plenty of other industries in which good press is bought and regulatory departments are captured with bribes, in pay or in kind. I’m personally familiar with the game industry and photography industry. But I can’t help but be bitter about the medical industry, having seen the effects of bad medicine on friends and family, when not experiencing it personally.
I would hope someone with your education would understand the difference between data and an anecdote. For the record we aren’t even mad at most doctors. We’re mad at the Pharma industry for introducing such corruption to our medical system.
Only if they buy the argument that it’s too difficult to explain what the hidden charges are for so they shouldn’t have to.
Thanks for adding the link to the article, but it might be more convenient if you also add the link to the post description.
Currently this comment is showing up at the bottom of the thread for me.Fair! I intended to have it in the original post but it didn’t take. Likely my error.
Yes, Republicans.
Seeing this episode when it came out vs in 2023 really hit different. It never dawned on me how finely honed their comedy was that season.
Which episode is that?
Basic Cable
South Park: Season 23, Episode 9
What are these Cable TV companies smoking? I want some!
high grade monopoly is a tough high to kick
Yar har, fiddle de dee!
those who are lobbied will buy whatever argument they are paid to buy.
_ /\ _
CW: DV >!“we’ll have to raise prices if early termination fees are banned” has a real “look how you made me hurt you” abuser vibe.!<
I’m imagining the logic is something like “predatory fees generate $xx million in revenue a year, so if we lose that revenue source we will have to put our other fees up to compensate, because as a multi-billion dollar company our shareholders will get all butthurt if our profit drops by a fraction of a percentage point next year”
I’d like to think that this is all some massive gambit by the FCC to get all these assholes on record so they can build some massive RICO case to take them all down in a massive price fixing and defrauding scheme.
But I am high right now.
early termination fees for anything are complete made up bullshit
Not like there’s a parallel market in cell phone contracts before and after T-Mobile’s branding as an ‘uncarrier’ to showcase that this is complete bullshit or anything…
