How Does Offering Free Content Insult Those Who Pay?

from the help-me-out-here dept

It's interesting to see the logical pretzels that certain business execs will twist themselves into to defend a poor business model against one that customers enjoy much more. Take for example, the claim from cable firm Rainbow Media's CEO, Josh Sapan, that free video online somehow "insults" people who pay for cable:

"I do think it's important to be technologically progressive and responsive to what consumers want. But that's a different thing, in my mind, from creating bad habits," Sapan said in an interview. "To offer these shows for free ... It's almost insulting to the consumer who's paying money for it, because it says to that consumer, 'What are you doing?'"

Of course you could make the identical argument for any obsolete product. The telephone apparently "insulted" telegraphy purchasers. The airplane apparently "insulted" those who traveled by boat across the ocean. The printing press? Man, did that ever insult those monks who wrote out bibles by hand.

Honestly, it's yet another sign of the entitlement culture, where some seem to assume they're entitled to keep their business model, and it's somehow "insulting" to show their customers that there are better/cheaper/more efficient ways to get what they need.

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Bank Changes Man's Password After They Realize It Insults Them

from the encrypted-passwords? dept

Usually, when you're dealing with a bank, they encrypt your passwords so that no one else can read them. However, apparently that isn't always the case -- and this allowed an employee at Lloyds TSB to change the password of one member from "Lloyds is pants" to "no it's not". The customer actually found the story to be amusing -- but it does seem slightly troubling that the bank, for whatever reason, was reviewing and changing a customer's password. They also forbade him from switching the password to "Barclays is better" and "censorship." Lloyds has apologized, and said the employee in question no longer works for the firm. It also explains why the guy was able to see the password in the first place by noting that on certain business accounts with multiple users, account reps can read the password. This seems pretty weak, though. If it's a business account with multiple users, why not let each user set up their own username and encrypted password? Also, it's still not explained why the guy was looking at users' passwords in the first place.

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