The Big Business philosophy goes beyond the mere assumption that if you offer a customer a good product at a fair price, he will come back for more. Big business wants to make sure you have no say in the matter, and will get over on you any chance it gets. This has been proven time and again.
Now it's been proven quite visibly with Cingular Wireless, who have now been seen to have given poor service to lower grade customers in an effort to get them to upgrade their service at a higher price. Yep, their asses have been caught up with. But they are not the only ones. I am having the same experience with my local cable company, Charter Cable.
I recently downgraded my service from expanded basic cable to just basic, as a result of which I no longer get Fox News or MSNBC. Boo Hoo.
I get the local channels, including two PBS channels, in addition to C-Span, so that's good enough for me. I also get CNN and ESPN. Or, that is, I am suppossed to get them. The sound quality of CNN is static, and the visual quality of ESPN is likewise. All the other stations come in fine. So, yesterday I finally got around to calling Charter, and after spending quite a few minutes getting connected, I spent even more time being put on hold, before I was finally routed to an agent, who put me on hold while she went to check to "see what the problem is." I was eventually discnnected from her, whereupon I was informed I must go through the proces again.
I hung up in disgust. Fuck Charter, I decided. I am not, under any circumstances, going back to expanded basic, or any of the other packages. I might, however, think about Dish Network, if they don't straighten up their fucking act.
