Comment by ajkjk

14 days ago

mostly unrelated but amusing: I keep getting fliers from Google fiber trying to get me to switch. Every one has this one bizarre line in it: "our customers have never had their rates go up!"---as if I am too stupid to realize that is not a promise. Now, I have no idea if that works on other people. Maybe enough other people are stupid and don't notice that that's not a promise that turns out to be good ad copy. But I am personally so put off by the disrespectful attempt at manipulation that I consider switching less, even though it might well save me money. It is significantly worse for them, as a sales tactic, than if they had written nothing there at all.

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ajkjk

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inigyou  14 days ago

You should switch to whatever is cheapest right now. If it gets more expensive, you should switch to whatever is cheapest right then. That's the market price signal that drives the good parts of capitalism.

  • whereistejas  8 days ago

    This is based on the assumption that switching between operators/providers is quick and straight-forward. The reality of switching is that it is extremely time-consuming and emotionally-draining. These corporate practices should not be a thing, but the providers know that this hurts their profit-margins, so they "choose" to make very difficult.

  • ajkjk  14 days ago

    that's one way of doing the calculation, which I do not subscribe to. The economic theory that markets develop according to the aggregate effects of rational actors does not invert into a moral imperative to you should do what money tells you. In fact it has no bearing on what one "should" do whatsoever.

    As it happens they are competing on service quality and goodwill more than price (all will drop the price quite a bit if you ask because it's well over their costs and, bless, they are actually competing on price for once). I know that fiber's service is technically good but I resent Google enough that I will not give them money, all else being equal. Of course if I end up resenting the other providers more, maybe I would.