 MPScanPremium
join:2001-08-24
Boston, MA | Wow, huh? Even though you may not like it, it's simple business.
You want a meal at McDonalds, you pay $3.99 for the value meal with fries, a Big Mac, and a coke. You just want the Big Mac.. that will be $2.99. You don't like it, don't buy the Big Mac. |
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| said by MPScan:
Even though you may not like it, it's simple business.
You want a meal at McDonalds, you pay $3.99 for the value meal with fries, a Big Mac, and a coke. You just want the Big Mac.. that will be $2.99. You don't like it, don't buy the Big Mac.
I agree, but if I'm hungry, I can choose hundreds of places to eat. I cannot get broadband internet in hundreds of different ways. So it's easy for me to walk away from a fast food place, but not as easy to walk away from Comcast.
The value meal analogy also fails in that the reason the fast food restaurant has value meals is because they want you to spend more money with each visit. With cable, you're paying the same amount for basic + internet as you are with internet only -- the company is not making any more money.
All Comcast is doing with this is betting that if you get basic cable you're going to end up upgrading your service (or hitting up pay-per-view, etc.) eventually.
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Welp -- finally trying this cable thing out. |
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 BoogeymanDrive it like you stole itPremium
join:2002-12-17
Panama City, FL
 ·Comcast
| reply to MPScan
True, but, how would you feel if you bought your big mack and then while you were eating it, one of the managers came over and told you you had to pay an extra quarter if you didnt buy some fries too? Thats the problem here, they are jacking her internet price up over $10 if she doesnt get cable tv too. When I signed up for my DSL, I could have gotten $5 off a month if i got the deluxe phone package, but i didnt want the deluxe package. Now if they calle dme up and said "Hey, if you dont get the deluxe package, we're gonna charge you an extra $10"
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what doesn't this button do? |
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| As I've stated in another thread, I think that the problem most have with this is the method and timing of creating the bundle. Comcast is relying on calling the action a "flat price increase" combined with a bundled discount- at the same time.
If Comcast had raised prices $10 for EVERYONE, waited 2 months and then created a bundled discount of $10 for cable subscribers, it would "look" better.
The situation of the customer in question having a contract with a satellite service has NOTHING to do with this- as Comcast has no way of finding this information out. If her case is being argued that she was singled out because she uses satellite service INSTEAD of cable, THAT would be anti-competitive.
However, she is in the same class as those that choose to use plain old rabbit ears or those that don't have TV's. Defining the action as anti-competitive would require showing that Comcast acted in an effort to eliminate competition. I wouldn't go so far as to call "bundle discounts" an effort to prevent competitors from competing. It isn't illegal, immoral, anti-competitive, or even WRONG in any way to change retail pricing in an effort to entice customers to buy your product (even multiple products that your company sells)- UNLESS you are lowering pricing to the point of a loss so as to "out-price" competition by subsidizing your loss with other services.
However, once again, Comcast isn't doing that. They're just acting in the reverse of what you normally see. A "shady" and seemingly unfair "loophole?" Perhaps. Anti-competitive? No.
Boogie
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 Combat ChuckToo Many CannibalsPremium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA
| said by boogie74:
As I've stated in another thread, I think that the problem most have with this is the method and timing of creating the bundle.
Exactly, but they don't realize that's what they're actually upset about.
This whole issue was brought about because an article was published that suggested it was extortion; and because people like feeling like they're getting screwed by big companies it caught on. It's simply people letting the media form their opinions.
And as I've said elsewhere, should this land in a court it could have far reaching implications. Implications like that $3.99 value meal now costing you $6.00 because McDonalds is no longer allowed to extort you into purchasing a drink to get a lower price on fries because you may already have a drink purchased elsewhere (and if that sounds bizarre to anyone; perhapse you can now understand how bizarre the comcast extortion thing sounds to me).
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So it begins.
[text was edited by author 2003-03-27 02:06:40] |
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| quote:
And as I've said elsewhere, should this land in a court it could have far reaching implications. Implications like that $3.99 value meal now costing you $6.00 because McDonalds is no longer allowed to extort you into purchasing a drink to get a lower price on fries because you may already have a drink purchased elsewhere (and if that sounds bizarre to anyone; perhapse you can now understand how bizarre the comcast extortion thing sounds to me).
Imagine what will happen when restaurants, bars and theaters are no longer allowed to have "No Carry-In" policies. I would call that closer to extortion and anti-competitive behavior than Comcast's "bundling" actions. Imagine the GALL of a restaurant to REQUIRE people to order WAY OVERPRICED soda, coffee and alcholic drinks if they want to eat the food served at the restaurant too. Honestly- it costs the restaurant more to wash the glass than it does to fill it with 16 oz of Pepsi- and the cost of washing that glass doesn't come CLOSE to the price of $1.75. But if I want to eat my meal at that restaurant, they PROHIBIT me from buying my soda elsewhere for cheaper- FORCING me to be RAPED by their monopolistic practices!
Boogie |
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Flycat
join:2003-05-12
Lawrence, MA Reviews:
 ·Verizon FiOS
| Why not even go further? McDonalds is overcharging everyone that chooses to buy a Big Mac and not get fries and a coke with it! Dunkin Donuts is overcharging everyone for coffee if they don't want a donut or something with it!
As much as I don't like it (I have DTV & Comcast internet myself) bundled pricing has always and will always make sense. The more business you do with a company the more you're going to save, end of story.
note: I'm dropping Comcast for VOL
[text was edited by author 2003-05-29 17:44:33] |
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