corporate greed
Mike Mendiola
was initially $40/month. Cool. Fast speed, good price. A month
later, I get a letter from AT&T stating that they're increasing the
price to $48/month. Well, what the hell I say to myself. But since I
had just subscribed, they gave me a $8 coupon to for every remaining
months of 2002. Cool... for now. Two days ago, I received another
letter stating starting Feb. 1, the price will rise to $60/month.
Well now, WTF? Not even a year has gone by and I'm already subject to
a $20/month price increase. And ever since I've subscribed to AT&T
broadband cable internet, my bandwidth has noticeably decreased. I
now have to pay more for less? Doesn't make sense to me, but I guess
it does to them. I supposed 6 months from now I'll be paying
$80/month for an even slower connection. I know... I just pissed off
and I'm ranting, but it just goes to show that when you're the only
one providing the service in the area, you can raise price of your
product at whim because there is no competition.
D R
It's law that most corporations are to put the interests of their
shareholders first. Raising prices to just before a large number of
cancelations occurs is doing just that. Not that I'd like it but that's the
way of the world.
Rod Smith
mdm...@yahoo.com (Mike Mendiola) writes:
> So when I signed up for AT&T broadband internet service last May, it
> was initially $40/month.
> Two days ago, I received another
> letter stating starting Feb. 1, the price will rise to $60/month.
> it just goes to show that when you're the only
> one providing the service in the area, you can raise price of your
> product at whim because there is no competition.
I don't know about AT&T specifically, but most broadband providers have
been bleeding red ink on their broadband offerings. The low prices of a
year ago and more were designed to draw in subscribers. Many (Northpoint,
Flashcom, Excite@Home, etc.) have gone out of business because they
didn't start earning a profit early enough. (Some also made some pretty
bad business decisions.) It was rather inevitable that broadband prices go
up from their levels of a year or two ago, with or without monopolies on
the market.
--
Rod Smith, rods...@rodsbooks.com
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, networking, & multi-OS configuration
Aaron - ELN
These SOB's are raising rates to fund mega mergers. I live in Atlanta and
our cable provider used to be COMCAST. A couple of years ago Comcast (here)
was bought by AT&T, which was just bought back by - COMCAST! And you can bet
taht some very few executives got insanely rich from all this money
changing. The whole piece of shit stinks. Aint 'bout notin more than
corporate greed!
"Rod Smith" <rods...@nessus.rodsbooks.com> wrote in message
news:mk810b...@speaker.rodsbooks.com...
Rod Smith
> Aint 'bout notin more than corporate greed!
Although I won't claim that these companies aren't greedy, there *IS*
more to it than that -- I find it hard to believe that broadband
connectivity could be profitable at the price point of a year ago (I was
paying about $35/month, IIRC). If there were really substantial profit
margins to be made at those prices, there wouldn't have been so many
bankruptcies in the broadband business over the past couple of years.
Basic Bob
> In article <Qn1V9.10014$Dq.10...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> "Aaron - ELN" <1aaro...@eln.net> writes:
> > No
> >
> > These SOB's are raising rates to fund mega mergers.
> ...
> > Aint 'bout notin more than corporate greed!
>
> Although I won't claim that these companies aren't greedy, there *IS*
> more to it than that -- I find it hard to believe that broadband
> connectivity could be profitable at the price point of a year ago (I was
> paying about $35/month, IIRC). If there were really substantial profit
> margins to be made at those prices, there wouldn't have been so many
> bankruptcies in the broadband business over the past couple of years.
Comcast is still $39.95 w/o modem in this part of SE MI.
The service is good. If they don't have to touch it, it's making money.
--
Basic Bob
gbasi...@gatt.gnet
the g's are silent
Rod Smith
"Basic Bob" <gbasi...@gatt.gnet> writes:
>
> Comcast is still $39.95 w/o modem in this part of SE MI.
> The service is good. If they don't have to touch it, it's making money.
Not necessarily. A common business practice is to roll out a new product
or service at a money-losing price in order to build a customer base
before raising prices, or in hopes that they'll be able to make money at
higher volumes. Comcast might still be in their customer-acquisition
phase, losing money but hoping to break even and then earn a profit in
the future. It's also possible they intend to always lose money on it,
but hope to use the modem service to keep customers from dumping
television service in favor of satellite, thus making a net per-customer
profit. Grocery stores do this sort of thing all the time; they lose
money on some of their products, which they use to draw you into the
store to buy their products that are profitable.
a user
at 384 kbps down and 128 kbps up. Plus another $10 or $20 for ISP
"service"; the price depended whether one use the phone company's ISP
or some other ISP.
Nobull
for profits--hmm
This is something like a 100 million dollar ball player so the stadiums have
to charge $30 for a hot dog.
Greg Bowers
9+ suggests (to me anyway) that the shareholders have lost control.
But the profits belong to the shareholders, so a lack of profits,
combined with large executive salaries, is a shareholder problem,
isn't it.
Now, as far as your hot dog analogy goes, I wonder if you can find an
economist who would accept your statement. Seriously, if $30 hot dogs
maximize concession profits for the owner of the concession rights,
then hot dogs will cost $30 INDEPENDENT of any salaries paid to the
players. The primary consideration beyond that, is whether $30 hot
dogs cause some people to not go to the game and therefore not pay
parking and admission and not buy any concessions.
Greg.
a user
> There's nothing wrong with 7+ digit salaries. 8+ is kind of fishy and
> 9+ suggests (to me anyway) that the shareholders have lost control.
> But the profits belong to the shareholders, so a lack of profits,
> combined with large executive salaries, is a shareholder problem,
> isn't it.
But many high digit salaried people have "stock options" and exercised
their options which puts the execs in the shareholder category; it is
a xfer from the right pocket to the left pocket.
>
> Now, as far as your hot dog analogy goes, I wonder if you can find an
> economist who would accept your statement. Seriously, if $30 hot dogs
> maximize concession profits for the owner of the concession rights,
> then hot dogs will cost $30 INDEPENDENT of any salaries paid to the
> players. The primary consideration beyond that, is whether $30 hot
> dogs cause some people to not go to the game and therefore not pay
> parking and admission and not buy any concessions.
>
Many "concessions" in an area/mall have connections to the mall's
owner/corp computer for registering sales; the concessions also pay
a percentage of the sales to the mall and would imagine the same goes
for a ballpark concession. This gimmik could very well make the pricing
of the hotdog a consideration for player salaries, i.e. "trickle up"
money?
>
>
>
> On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 22:40:04 GMT, "Nobull" <Ki...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Odd that executives are pulling in 7+ digit salaries, but there is no money
>>for profits--hmm
>>
>>This is something like a 100 million dollar ball player so the stadiums have
>>to charge $30 for a hot dog.
>>
>>
>>
>>> >> Although I won't claim that these companies aren't greedy, there *IS*
>>> >> more to it than that -- I find it hard to believe that broadband
>>> >> connectivity could be profitable at the price point of a year ago (I
>>was
>>> >> paying about $35/month, IIRC). If there were really substantial profit
>>> >> margins to be made at those prices, there wouldn't have been so many
>>> >> bankruptcies in the broadband business over the past couple of years.
>>> >
>>> > Comcast is still $39.95 w/o modem in this part of SE MI.
>>> > The service is good. If they don't have to touch it, it's making money.
>>> >
>>> My local telephone company is advert and charging $49.95 for DSL
>>> at 384 kbps down and 128 kbps up. Plus another $10 or $20 for ISP
>>> "service"; the price depended whether one use the phone company's ISP
>>> or some other ISP.
>>
>
--
doug
However, in the real world, economic theory and $2.75 will buy you a cup of
coffee at the ballpark. Profits do not belong to the shareholders - if they
exist, they are to be used at the disgression of the Board of Directors and
officers of the company. If they decide to pay exorbitant salaries, they
will. The problem often is that salaries are paid out of investors money
BEFORE there are any profits. Maybe not for long, but that's assuming that
they haven't structured the terms of the B of D so that it would take years
to replace them. And as for this being a shareholder problem, in the case of
most cable companies, the majority of shares are controlled by the B of D,
officers, and investment partners. (see Comcast). In those cases, the
regular shareholders are virtually powerless under any circumstances.
The same situation exists in today's ballparks. They gouge their customers
because they CAN - after all, they often own the parking facilities, the
concessions, etc. - and because they MUST - to pay outrageous salaries. They
will charge the absolute maximum they can w/o driving away the marginal
customer. With complete control over all food and beverage sales, and tough
restrictions on what can be brought into the stadium, the $30 hotdog is not
far away. This is a contributing factor to why MLBB attendance is down and
minor league teams are successful in many markets. I live close to
Philadelphia, where a local minor league team sells out almost every night
of the season. A family of four can attend a game for what it would cost for
one person to go to the Vet. And wait until next season when the Phillies
have to start paying for that new stadium. Whew!!
"Greg Bowers" <use...@zxtt.mailshell.com> wrote in message
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