2y ago

Cable lobby and Republicans fight proposed ban on early termination fees / Customers should be allowed to cancel cable TV without penalty, Democrats say

arstechnica.com Cable lobby and Republicans fight proposed ban on early termination fees

Customers should be allowed to cancel cable TV without penalty, Democrats say.

Cable lobby and Republicans fight proposed ban on early termination fees / Customers should be allowed to cancel cable TV without penalty, Democrats say::Customers should be allowed to cancel cable TV without penalty, Democrats say.

58 comments

Another example of a thing I figured 10+ years ago.
Take a headline, strip it of political references. Just the facts in question. Ask yourself, "Will this initiative hurt people?" Doesn't matter if you feel those people deserve to be hurt. Merely ask, "Will people be hurt?"
And now you know who's voting for it! I played this game with myself for years. Never got it wrong.
- The cruelty is the point
- The problem with this is that with most initiatives, there are winners and losers. Someone is hurt, but someone else (possibly many people) is helped. Even a Robin Hood-like approach hurts the rich, however small and insignificantly.
  Can you refine that rule?
  
  You're right and I should refine it!
  How about; "Does this initiative hurt more people than it helps?"
  Fair question my friend!
  (And yes, sometimes the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many in the long term. Rare, but it can happen.)
- It cuts both ways though.
  In theory one could argue that eliminating ETFs would hurt the company owners and investors, who technically are people.
  So it does kind of matter which people are being hurt and if they deserve it or not.
  
  Extremely bad take, lol.
  If the company isn't financially sound without charging customers to no longer be customers, the business isn't viable.
  What an asinine attempt to justify predatory, anti-consumer behaviour from corporations.
  
  Hurt 20 millionaires/billionaires, or 100,000,000 working class people. I'm willing to bet that as a percentage of income, the investors will still lose less than the average customers are currently losing.

Freedom is slavery!
Republicans.
- Yeah, the problem is they really do believe the next line - even if they don’t know it.
  “Ignorance is strength”
  aka “Do your own research”

Cable providers are among the worst fucking crooks in the entire country.
Just tried to take as much money from you as possible while providing ass tier service.

I find it hard to believe that anybody who hasn't had a frontal lobotomy or isn't a corpo ratfucker could ever be in favor of early termination fees as a legitimate and healthy business practice.
- Strong disagree regarding it as a business measure in whole. Without penalties for breaking contracts, many business relationships will absolutely fall apart.
  Rather, this is an issue of consumer protection, and consumer rights should generally be given preferential treatment over contracts for the same reasons unions exist - it levels the playing field between entities of far differing power and means.
  I absolutely guarantee that lobbyists are pitching that first half at republicans and downplaying the everliving fuck out of the second.
  
  We're obviously talking about consumer contract law here, so the point of business relationships falling apart is moot.
  If cable companies could prove to me that them pressing a button to cancel my service merits the exorbitant cancellation fees that they charge, then maybe I'd change my opinion.
  
  Why do these companies need a contract?

Quick Trivia Question: When in history have conservatives ever been the good guys?
Answer: Trick question! The answer is never.
- Ignoring any specific ideas about morality, conservatives (in the sense of people who resist change) and guaranteed to be on the wrong side of history, because their very nature is to cling to ideas that everyone else has decided are obsolete.

Being allowed to cancel subscriptions is SOCIALISM apparently!

I wish they’ve finally just nationalize the entire infrastructure and then sell access to the ISPs like they did with British Telecom in the UK. Cable companies are scum and they shouldn’t be getting any further support or federal funding after the shit they’ve pulled.
I didn’t need a new phone line when I wanted to change long distance plans 40 years ago. Why is Internet service any different? Mandate a line/conduit to each house and be done with it. See how they like it when they actually have to compete.

Wait til streaming services start having contracts. That's next

But tell me how both parties are the same. The Right is literally punishing people for not wanting the product of a private company!
- I mean, the fees are disclosed up front

Cable lobby and Republicans ...
Isn't that a little redundant? Aren't Republicans and big business lobbies effectively the same thing?
- Good god the naïveté. Would you say Pfizer serves as an example of a big business?
  
  Republicans handed over tons of government scratch to Pfizer and other big pharma companies.

Got rid of cable T.V. a long time ago. I endorse pirating everything until the rich start to feel it.

In the Netherlands early termination fees are not allowed, you sign up for a period and stick with that. After that initial period you can then terminate with 30 day notice, no auto renew per year, or you get a prorated refund of what you paid (in annual payment for example). A few exceptions apply but not many.
This was done to avoid the fuckery of having a very small window on annual contracts where if you missed it, you would be locked in for another year.
- This was done to avoid the fuckery of having a very small window on annual contracts where if you missed it, you would be locked in for another year.
  Here in the good ol US of A that's how some of my apartment leases worked.
  🎶 God bless America 🎶

where are people living that they have termination fees on cable tv? I am in Minnesota with Spectrum (previously charter (previously something else)) .. I could call in tomorrow and drop the service and there wouldn't be a termination fee. They would give me an option : use it for the rest of the billing period or just cancel it now and prorate the amount I've paid.
I'm not saying fees don't exist. I'm just curious what companies are charging them and where these people live.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Federal Communications Commission has taken a step toward prohibiting early termination fees charged by cable and satellite TV providers.
Cable lobby group NCTA-The Internet & Television Association opposes the plan and said it will submit comments to support "consumer choice and competitive parity."
Carr pointed out that traditional MVPDs (Multichannel Video Programming Distributors) "are bleeding market share to new, unregulated competitors," namely online streaming services.
Carr was referring to recent 3–2 votes on net neutrality regulations and rules that prohibit discrimination in access to broadband services.
Simington argued that consumers will end up paying more because contracts with early termination fees have discounted monthly rates.
He asked whether the FCC believes that cable and satellite providers "will, out of their gracious love of consumers, voluntarily fully retain today's long-term contractual discounts while merely doing without ETF revenue."
The original article contains 554 words, the summary contains 138 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Republican Party: We hate you, fuck you.
Republican voters: I want those guys!

Marsha Blackburn has entered the chat

Internet plans too?

If you feel comfortable giving your SSN to privacy.com, you can just give them a privacy.com credit card number and then cancel whenever you want.
You could probably do the same thing with a reloadable prepaid card and then just withdraw all the money whenever you want to stop paying.
- I mean it could still be a breach of contract. Chances are they won't pursue you in court though
  
  Technically, but it's not likely. They'd probably do more damage to their reputation then it would be worth.

While this would be wonderful, I also believe that Cable providers are private companies, and shouldn't be regulated by the government.
- If they wouldn't apple would still sell lightning ports instead of type c, if government regulate behaviour of citizens they should regulate behaviour of corporations too, USA government said that corporations have legal rights as persons but somehow they don't have same obligations as persons while they should have, if do A then do B it's pretty simple
- I feel like conversatives just learn first principals and stop there. It's kinda sad. The FCC, FTC, etc exist in order to keep our markets fair and consumer friendly.
  This weird, free-trade utopia that they dream about does not exist, has never existed, and cannot exist. Instead when you remove all the regulation, you get anarchy like we see today in many 3rd world countries.
  I would love to see our government get more efficient and targetted with its regulation, but to simply argue against it is extremely naive.
  
  Correct, assuming some fairly specific definitions of "conservatives" and "anarchy".
- I'm sure you also believe "the market will self-regulate" despite near-daily evidence that without stronger regulation it's a race to the bottom.
  Truth is denied those who seek it with both eyes shut.
  
  Actually, quite the opposite.
  I believe that in general the economy should be left free, but not in cases of extreme recession or inflation (ex. Right now). In fact, that's basically one of the three reasons the federal government was established; to establish a common currency and economy, to regulate mail, and to solve disputes between states.
  That being said, a private company should be able to run their business how they want to run it without being told off by a government.
  Edit: Clarified wording.

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