Why Monopolies are Bad


Why Monopolies are Bad

I used to bounce back and forth between the phone company and the cable company when it came to my internet service. The competition kind of kept things honest, and while prices were never really all that low, at least one of them would be reasonable at any given point in time.

So then Time Warner Cable got bought out by Charter, and turned into Spectrum. “Oh, this is a good thing for consumers!” cried the lobbyists. Meanwhile, AT&T stopped providing phone and internet services to the area because they couldn’t find enough consumers interested in their Uverse promotions. The result? My internet jumped up from $40 to $60 a month.

Now you might be thinking, “Hey, that’s just normal price increases,” but my Dad lives 20 miles south in a neighborhood still serviced by AT&T. He and I got the EXACT SAME INTERNET PLANS AT THE SAME TIME FOR THE SAME PRICE. His is still $40 a month.

Of course you might be thinking, well maybe they just haven’t gotten around to raising your dad’s– Let me cut you off there. They jacked my rates up back in April. “Well, if you live out in the boonies—” Nope. I live in a major US city. These fuckers are price gouging a working class neighborhood that has no real alternative.

So I cancelled them, and now I download YouTube videos at work to a thumbdrive so I can watch them at home after work. I also tether my cell phone at home so I can check on various websites, but streaming video is kind of verboten because data plans aren’t cheap either.

OK, so I probably could have used this for the “Sunday Rant”, but when trying to think of an idea for a comic this week, I just couldn’t get this out of my head.

Pax,

-f2x

Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *