Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA
| reply to pnh102
Re: What's He Talking About?
The problem has little to do with carriers, it has everything to do with people only valuing initial price when they shop for everything. People want a free handset, free talktime and all this other stuff, they don't care about anything else...that is until after they buy into a plan and then they bitch about everything else.
The problem with the free market is that it requires both sellers and buyers to think about how they interact with the market compare alternatives and then act in their best interest. The sellers are doing that, the buyers aren't doing anything but the bare minimum, they want the sellers to do the work for them to act in the buyers best interest which makes absolutely no sense (would you ask the guy robbing your house for recommendations of security systems).
Devo wrote a song about it:
»www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9hpMgKI_NU
"Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want"
--
The world’s elusive, remember
where love's the leaf
faith, the river
what's born as flame dies in ember
see for yourself! |
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keyboard5684
join:2001-08-01
Youngsville, PA
 ·Teliax VOIP
 ·WestPAnet Inc.
 ·WestPAnet Inc. CA..
| Of course you would ask the guy robbing your house on the best security system, who is going to know best?
I think shoppers are more aware, now, about what plans they are buying into than the phones and accessories. I disagree with you because by now every single one of us has in one way or another been raped by a "plan" that was supposed to save us money.
You say "both sellers and buyers to think about how they interact with the market" yet the buyer is going for just that, the bare minimum and the seller is going for the maximum. It is working how it is supposed to.
Your post almost sounds like an angry cell shop worker.
The point made is that this is not what was envisioned, this was not the plan, this was not what they wanted when they invented and released it.
We need to get away from this phone companies owning the phone. We need to get away from carriers charging so much for things like texting (I mean $10 a month for 300 messages?).
It ALL looks exactly like the AT&T bell system that was back in the day where the telephone company owned everything.
What will happen, is the same thing... revolution. VOIP in my mind is a small revolution and it will get far worse. People, when free, will break out of these locked in BS and go free.
Example, In my area it is very "hilly", the terrain is rough. Someone on top of what most would call a mountain (we call a hill), puts up a nice WIFI system ONLY for VOIP over WIFI systems. BAM, free calls (except the $4.95 to the VOIP provider and $30 per month to the bandwidth provider, no not verizon or any of those). Limited coverage but it is a start.
People want free... of course they do. But this is where both sides, the buyer and the seller, have to come together or the buyer will break away and the SELLER LOSES.
No one intended it to get this way, it did. Now something needs to happen before we see a cell bubble pop. |
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Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA
| said by keyboard5684  :I think shoppers are more aware, now, about what plans they are buying into than the phones and accessories. Yes, but they still won't pay what the phone is worth to get higher level of service, they still go with the provider with the lowest upfront cost (without regard to actual to incidentals), and they still bitch when the bill comes due.
Consumers have removed their brains from the actual part of purchasing stuff. They want someone else to tell them what is a good value, and what it comes down to is that someone else is the Verizon rep they buy their phone from because they can't be bothered to actually look for themselves. Why the hell do you think the US economy is the way it is, how many people relied on a mortgage broker to give them advice on the loan that that broker stood to make money from? The answer there is pretty much everyone who is sitting on an ARM.
--
The world’s elusive, remember
where love's the leaf
faith, the river
what's born as flame dies in ember
see for yourself! |
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Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA | Around 60% of the US mortgage market are fixed rate, this being the only fact you supplied, I'll surmise the accuracy of the rest of your ancedotal comments. |
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Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA
| I'm sorry, at what point does %40 not signify a large number. That also doesn't account for the number of people given good advice by their brokers, but that still relied solely on their brokers for advice.
I'm sorry I didn't give you a 150 page report on the issue but you'll understand that I'm a little strapped for time here. |
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phoneboy3
@shawcable.net
| reply to Combat Chuck
Complete utter horse$hit!
The telco's are experts at maintaining a public facade of an open free competitive market while simultanously spending billions behind the scenes lobbying for laws that do just the opposite and putting small upstarts out of business. |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| reply to Combat Chuck
Actually, if the providers didn't close their networks and limit and control handsets, phones would be dirt cheap.
Much like buying a wristwatch, for example. The market would be flooded with all kinds of handsets and you'd just pick one. This competition would make them cheap, too. However, the locked down, controlled market keeps them high.
--
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA
 ·Verizon FIOS
1 edit | reply to Combat Chuck
Sorry, misread your response. I thought I read "The answer there is pretty much everyone is sitting on an ARM." Missed the who.
That being said, I still don't think generalizations hold value. There are plenty of intelligent consumers. There are more dummies, but you can say that about everything. |
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