Our unregulated local cable company has replaced the regulated telephone company as the most hated business in America. Deservedly so. Call them and you will wait. Visit their office or call for service - the same. Their bills are astronomical. Their business practices are designed exclusively to benefit the company, customers be damned.
We all have cable horror stories. They use the phone system and independent contractors to screen them from unhappy customers, who deserve better. They allow us to evaluate the service contractors, never their business practices, which produced over $5 billion in profits for Time Warner last year. They have learned how to profitably tether this nation of couch potatoes to the cable line.
I marvel at the alchemy and laws which have allowed these cable pirates to turn a beefed-up electronic signal into a monthly amount of money that used to make a house payment. And we still have the commercials, which used to pay for it all.
These people would not be in business if there existed a practical alternative. Hopefully new technology and some government oversight will make that come to pass.
Bob Stabile,
Mayfield Heights