| reply to PGHammer
Re: And Just Who Are Those Investors? said by PGHammer:said by mod_wastrel:Yeah, well, Comcast, for example, receives much more money from customers than from investors, so... do the math: screw your customers--repeatedly, and they will cut you off. Customer unfriendly policies, plans, and prices are just some of the ways for an ISP to cut off its nose to spite its face. You want to keep a balance between shareholders and customers, but of the two customers are considerably more valuable than shareholders. A service that no one is willing to pay for is of no worth at all. And a public company that doesn't pay a fair return on the investment (in the opinion of those investors) *gets* no investors, no matter what the customers think. Cooperatives and other not-for-profits are perfectly free to operate differently (after all, neither a cooperative or other NFP is forced to make a profit); however, a public company is faced with that onus. Can you name a not-for-profit *national* telecom provider that is not a governmental entity, anywhere? Oh please. Don't get me started. People invest in companies and keep their money in those companies no matter *what* the corporation does. Just look at Charter who is going bankrupt or heck even GM. These companies all have incurred serious financial catastrophes, and dumb investors stuck with them until they declared bankruptcy and lost their money.
Look at Google, who made up arbitrary voting rules that gave all the power to the founders and essentially no power to the investors. Despite the rules their IPO was huge, and they've been massively successful, attracting even more investors, *not* gouging their customers for every possible money. |
