A while back, somebody went to court and won a settlement because "I didn't know what was included in the bill".
Now, this settlement is being abused as items are being itemized, but outside of the bill, or actually, the price originally quoted.
What seems to be actually happening is in some cases, business are viewing charge cards as an optional cost that customers have to pay. What they are forgetting is why businesses were so eager to go to charge cards in the first place. There is no "shrinkage" in charge card payments. There is no cost of counting cash from the drawer (usually at least three times (twice by the cashier, once by a manager, and recounts if there is a discrepancy) to make sure it is correct and that none of the case from the drawer has walked away (or rather into somebody's pocket). There are no errors counting change remember the old arguments about "I gave you a twenty, no, you gave me a ten" and the ensuing hard feelings. Could have been an honest mistake by the cashier, or it could be the 'customer' trying to get an extra ten as change.
However; now businesses see it as a way to add an extra, after the purchase, charge that should be just a cost of doing business, to a customers final bill.
Next, there's going to be an add-on, by every business, for a "lease payment recovery charge", a "telecommunications cost recovery charge", a "website cost recovery charge", an "advertising cost recovery charge", and so on, as the normal cost-of-doing-business expenses are going to start showing up on consumers' bills.
Personally, I've started my own protest for restaurants (mostly, but other businesses also) that add a 3% charge card fee. I've started carrying cash again. If enough people started doing this, they are going to end up with many thousands of dollars in the till at the end of each day that is going to have to be counted multiple times, secured during the day to avoid robberies (they have become a non-target since charge receipts can't be spent), and then somehow safely transporting thousands of dollars in cash to the bank every day.
I guess then, they will have to add a cash surcharge to the bill also.
Another topic that the telcos like to ignore is that they want customer loyalty. Instead, they promote changing. There are lots of incentives to switch providers. The telcos lure new customers with free/cheap phones, great introductory phones, accessories, and etc. Then if they get their way, a long contract that locks in that new customer to a LONG contract with a very expensive price that they get to change the terms on whenever they want, but customers are locked into. Also included with those long term "locked in" prices are fees that they get to increase but are not part of the advertised price and can keep going up.
Only the telco can change the contract, increase fees, remove features and so on and customers are still stuck.
The telcos want the locking of phones as another means of "retaining" customers but most of them also offer some type of incentive that includes a new "reduced price" phone so lure new customers from other telcos.
However; there is NEVER a retention feature, only the phone/contract lock-in to try to force customers to stay. It's an attempt to eliminate any chance of competition by removing any chance changing to another provider.
And of course, if a customer does decide to stay when the contract ends, there is never a price increase from all those synergies and economies of scale talked about in the merger mania. Only increased costs of doing business.
But they are their own worst enemies. Customers never receive the benefit of any merger synergies, they are already locked into an ever increasing "contract" price (because of increasing fees).
Most can't wait for a contract to end so they can go somewhere else for a better deal via new customer incentives. There are zero incentives to stay with a provider. AND, if you complain about it to customer service, they read some pre-planned script about there's nothing they can do about it.
When such patents are invalidated, studies have shown “cardiovascular medications have fallen 97% in price, cancer drugs dropping 80-98%, and treatments for opioid addiction becom[e] 50% more affordable.”
Well at least this part is not going to matter since King Orange Math Genius is going to get drug prices down 500%, 1,000%, 1,600% maybe even 2 Bazillion percent, so there's that. /sarc
So much of this illegal law passing to enable censorship is by the religious crowd. When is somebody going to step up and start a Religion of Porn? I mean, once it is a religion, the religious crowd is going to be trying to make some other religion illegal.
Can you see the headlines, this religion is trying to stop that religion. It would be hilarious. Something along the lines of the "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster".
Be crafty about it with worshiping the natural form of the body created in god's image and so on. Then, all of this becomes a religious fight which (I would guess) is going to be more difficult because, in theory, they would have to be careful not to pass laws that are going to inhibit their own religion.
What a colossal waste of money!!! Where is DOGE now to call out this huge waste of money. Musk is gone, but isn't DOGE still looking for government waste. THIS IS A HUGE DISHONORABLE WASTE OF PUBLIC MONEY.
The next letter will be about why the scientific journals keep talking about the round earth when the tRump MAGAts really know that the earth is actually flat.
Yeah, I agree, this is the "idonwanna" defense. Everyone involved is part of the federal government and there is no recourse if they fail to do there job. The "I was just doing my job" game is played and the blame just gets sent uphill until it gets to the president, who is now immune thanks to the Supreme Court ruling. So, na na na na, I don't wanna and you can't make me is the law of the land for the "high court" members of the Orange Idiot's administration. NO ONE CAN OR WILL be held accountable.
This is another problem big journalism has brought on itself. Instead of growing, they get bigger by buying other companies to satisfy Wall Street. If CBS would stop these big Mega Mergers and instead grow their own business, they wouldn't need FCC approval. BUT, since Wall Street insists they double revenues every quarter, the only way to do that is to buy income via mega mergers. A more sensible plan to organically grow their own business instead of buying revenue would never need approval, its just not fast enough for Wall Street.
Of course that would mean have original (good) ideas and implementing them rather than buying the competition and swallowing them down into oblivion.
I find it curious that the new Trumpist government agency is going to be the DOGE. Please see here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice, for the historic version of DOGE.
EVEN if Musk ever came to trial for this, it won't matter. He is not a commoner, so this will go to the High Court and get a wrist slap. Either there is enough buffers to keep him out of it (The PAC did it, not me), or he will (and/or Trump) will get a wrist slap and be told "stop that (ha, ha)".
DHS doesn't even care about the money. It's our money they are spending to make H1b visa holders miserable. The visa holders, who are trying to honor their obligation under the visa to get educated, are being railroaded out of the country because somebody was trying to hit their numbers for arrests. But, did it by lying to visa holders about the school that they applied to (and paid) that had no intent to ever deliver the promised classes.
As with many things in advertising, the words "Price Lock" means about the same as "unlimited" and "lifetime guarantee". They mean whatever the company wants them to mean at a moment in time.
That means that the definition is very fluid and changes over time to mean anything they want.
Hats, umbrellas and parasols need to make a comeback. Some sort of wide brimmed hat for men, and parasols for women need to make a comeback as a passive protest to the alway on cameras.
Or, maybe some new facial jewelry that can be changed everyday. Stars, moons, and other facial lucky charms would probably send facial recognition AIs into a tailspin. They depend on a face looking the same every time. If new moles, or other changes in the appearance of a face change everyday, then the AI will fail badly.
This high churn rate is a streaming business “killer,”
This 'churn rate' that is a killer is because the measure of success is new subscribers, not retained customers. Only new customers get discounts and reduced price package deals.
Existing customers are subject to steady price increases and added fees. Existing customers are the continuous income of a business but are ignored and tortured, the proverbial nickel and dimed to death.
Instead, the whole sexy new customer is all that is heard about. Obtaining new customers is hard work and expensive. Existing customers are a source of continuous income. Maybe cable companies and streaming services (and mobile phone companies for that matter) should stop spending so much effort to get new customers and put more effort into making existing customers happy and wanting to stay.
By constantly focusing only on new customers, these businesses encourage existing customers to leave and 6 months later become a "new customer" again and take advantage of all of the benefits and discounts only available to new customers?
If the streaming services are going to survive then they should stop the constant expensive quest for the next new customer and start working on how to encourage existing customers to stay.
We'll need to see how this plays out. The 'fees' were invented to honor "full disclosure" requirements. They couldn't have an all in price, they had to disclose what composed that price. So, every business under the sun broke out those 'separate' items as line items 'added' to quoted price. And then, felt obligated to keep raising those non-price fees to give themselves raises without raising the price. Now, if they include all that in the quoted price, will they still be separate line items in the price that can still be raised but not be raising the price. OR, how will they become more creative in the way that they raise the cost to the customer without raising the advertised price?
Let's face it, the "contract" that customers must agree to when getting almost any service nowadays says that the customer must pay whatever they are told, period, but the service provider can change anything, often including the price, or remove any currently provided service, 'because'.
For example, XBox removed capabilities from it's gave consoles, HP printers won't operate unless it has Official, HP sanctioned ink cartridges ONLY, or the most popular one is that cable providers get into an argument with channels, so it just disappears. No price reduction because a formerly included channel just disappears, customers have to just suck it up because it's allowed by the 'contract'.
And, the customer often can't even cancel the contract, but the provider can change anything it wants. What a sucky version of a one way binding to the customer only contract.
...Amazon’s decision to charge users paying $140 a year even more money every month just to avoid ads that didn’t exist previously.
While Amazon's change is disturbing to me because it decided to charge more for the same service I was getting, this is part of a more disturbing trend.
The 'contract' with Amazon and pretty much every big company has a very one sided clause that says they can change the terms of the contract at any time. Very seldom are the changes to the terms made to benefit the consumer, they almost always benefit the huge corporation. The only change the consumer can make is to drop that service.
The business, maybe, tries to make the changes small enough that consumers won't just cancel the service. However; as we've seen with cable, that means that the additional fee starts small, then increases year over year.
So, a service I started because it was being paid for, that was ad free, all of a sudden becomes a source of more ads just because they can change the contract at any time.
It's like the contracts are only a contract for the consumer since they can't change the contract. The business just keeps changing the contract to whatever they can get away with until they can see the drop-off in subscribers.
Based on my business classes from way back when, it seems like streaming business should look at customer retention as a metric, not just number of subscribers. If, for a while, the number of subscribers goes up because of exclusive content and a price increase, then falls because the exclusive content disappears, the number of subscribers goes down again.
AWS an Amazon company does a lot of statistics for the NFL. Why don't they do some statistics for themselves and learn more about customer churn and how to retain customers instead of sacrificing current customers for new ones all the time?
If AI LLMs are so smart (ok well, trained or trainable), let's train one on copyright. Then we can use it to see if the output of one is in violation of copyright.
Oh wait, that won't work, copyright is so messed up that the copyright AI will need full time psychiatric up because it will almost immediately become insane.
Wow, those paedophiles are sneaky SOBs.
They are the only ones in the world that need their messages encrypted I guess.
Well, now be aware, that the UK recognizes that all encrypted messages are from/to paedophiles and those creeps will now be going to jail.
Well, it's time for dead people to start spamming the FCC with comments against this new proposal. Beware, the website is going to crash again from a new mysterious DDoS attack.
The spam bots will bury this proposal too, just you watch.
You don't understand, you can't see that agreement due to national security implications. That's all, move along, nothing here to see.
A while back, somebody went to court and won a settlement because "I didn't know what was included in the bill". Now, this settlement is being abused as items are being itemized, but outside of the bill, or actually, the price originally quoted. What seems to be actually happening is in some cases, business are viewing charge cards as an optional cost that customers have to pay. What they are forgetting is why businesses were so eager to go to charge cards in the first place. There is no "shrinkage" in charge card payments. There is no cost of counting cash from the drawer (usually at least three times (twice by the cashier, once by a manager, and recounts if there is a discrepancy) to make sure it is correct and that none of the case from the drawer has walked away (or rather into somebody's pocket). There are no errors counting change remember the old arguments about "I gave you a twenty, no, you gave me a ten" and the ensuing hard feelings. Could have been an honest mistake by the cashier, or it could be the 'customer' trying to get an extra ten as change. However; now businesses see it as a way to add an extra, after the purchase, charge that should be just a cost of doing business, to a customers final bill. Next, there's going to be an add-on, by every business, for a "lease payment recovery charge", a "telecommunications cost recovery charge", a "website cost recovery charge", an "advertising cost recovery charge", and so on, as the normal cost-of-doing-business expenses are going to start showing up on consumers' bills. Personally, I've started my own protest for restaurants (mostly, but other businesses also) that add a 3% charge card fee. I've started carrying cash again. If enough people started doing this, they are going to end up with many thousands of dollars in the till at the end of each day that is going to have to be counted multiple times, secured during the day to avoid robberies (they have become a non-target since charge receipts can't be spent), and then somehow safely transporting thousands of dollars in cash to the bank every day. I guess then, they will have to add a cash surcharge to the bill also.
Another topic that the telcos like to ignore is that they want customer loyalty. Instead, they promote changing. There are lots of incentives to switch providers. The telcos lure new customers with free/cheap phones, great introductory phones, accessories, and etc. Then if they get their way, a long contract that locks in that new customer to a LONG contract with a very expensive price that they get to change the terms on whenever they want, but customers are locked into. Also included with those long term "locked in" prices are fees that they get to increase but are not part of the advertised price and can keep going up. Only the telco can change the contract, increase fees, remove features and so on and customers are still stuck. The telcos want the locking of phones as another means of "retaining" customers but most of them also offer some type of incentive that includes a new "reduced price" phone so lure new customers from other telcos. However; there is NEVER a retention feature, only the phone/contract lock-in to try to force customers to stay. It's an attempt to eliminate any chance of competition by removing any chance changing to another provider. And of course, if a customer does decide to stay when the contract ends, there is never a price increase from all those synergies and economies of scale talked about in the merger mania. Only increased costs of doing business. But they are their own worst enemies. Customers never receive the benefit of any merger synergies, they are already locked into an ever increasing "contract" price (because of increasing fees). Most can't wait for a contract to end so they can go somewhere else for a better deal via new customer incentives. There are zero incentives to stay with a provider. AND, if you complain about it to customer service, they read some pre-planned script about there's nothing they can do about it.
So much of this illegal law passing to enable censorship is by the religious crowd. When is somebody going to step up and start a Religion of Porn? I mean, once it is a religion, the religious crowd is going to be trying to make some other religion illegal. Can you see the headlines, this religion is trying to stop that religion. It would be hilarious. Something along the lines of the "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster". Be crafty about it with worshiping the natural form of the body created in god's image and so on. Then, all of this becomes a religious fight which (I would guess) is going to be more difficult because, in theory, they would have to be careful not to pass laws that are going to inhibit their own religion.
Where are the DOGE kids
What a colossal waste of money!!! Where is DOGE now to call out this huge waste of money. Musk is gone, but isn't DOGE still looking for government waste. THIS IS A HUGE DISHONORABLE WASTE OF PUBLIC MONEY.
The next letter will be about why the scientific journals keep talking about the round earth when the tRump MAGAts really know that the earth is actually flat.
Yeah, I agree, this is the "idonwanna" defense. Everyone involved is part of the federal government and there is no recourse if they fail to do there job. The "I was just doing my job" game is played and the blame just gets sent uphill until it gets to the president, who is now immune thanks to the Supreme Court ruling. So, na na na na, I don't wanna and you can't make me is the law of the land for the "high court" members of the Orange Idiot's administration. NO ONE CAN OR WILL be held accountable.
This is another problem big journalism has brought on itself. Instead of growing, they get bigger by buying other companies to satisfy Wall Street. If CBS would stop these big Mega Mergers and instead grow their own business, they wouldn't need FCC approval. BUT, since Wall Street insists they double revenues every quarter, the only way to do that is to buy income via mega mergers. A more sensible plan to organically grow their own business instead of buying revenue would never need approval, its just not fast enough for Wall Street. Of course that would mean have original (good) ideas and implementing them rather than buying the competition and swallowing them down into oblivion.
A Quick Review of History
I find it curious that the new Trumpist government agency is going to be the DOGE. Please see here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice, for the historic version of DOGE.
Doesn't matter to Musk, he will be treated to High Court Rules
EVEN if Musk ever came to trial for this, it won't matter. He is not a commoner, so this will go to the High Court and get a wrist slap. Either there is enough buffers to keep him out of it (The PAC did it, not me), or he will (and/or Trump) will get a wrist slap and be told "stop that (ha, ha)".
DHS doesn't even care about the money. It's our money they are spending to make H1b visa holders miserable. The visa holders, who are trying to honor their obligation under the visa to get educated, are being railroaded out of the country because somebody was trying to hit their numbers for arrests. But, did it by lying to visa holders about the school that they applied to (and paid) that had no intent to ever deliver the promised classes.
Advertisers use a different Dictionary
As with many things in advertising, the words "Price Lock" means about the same as "unlimited" and "lifetime guarantee". They mean whatever the company wants them to mean at a moment in time. That means that the definition is very fluid and changes over time to mean anything they want.
I Need a New Hat
Hats, umbrellas and parasols need to make a comeback. Some sort of wide brimmed hat for men, and parasols for women need to make a comeback as a passive protest to the alway on cameras. Or, maybe some new facial jewelry that can be changed everyday. Stars, moons, and other facial lucky charms would probably send facial recognition AIs into a tailspin. They depend on a face looking the same every time. If new moles, or other changes in the appearance of a face change everyday, then the AI will fail badly.
We'll need to see how this plays out. The 'fees' were invented to honor "full disclosure" requirements. They couldn't have an all in price, they had to disclose what composed that price. So, every business under the sun broke out those 'separate' items as line items 'added' to quoted price. And then, felt obligated to keep raising those non-price fees to give themselves raises without raising the price. Now, if they include all that in the quoted price, will they still be separate line items in the price that can still be raised but not be raising the price. OR, how will they become more creative in the way that they raise the cost to the customer without raising the advertised price? Let's face it, the "contract" that customers must agree to when getting almost any service nowadays says that the customer must pay whatever they are told, period, but the service provider can change anything, often including the price, or remove any currently provided service, 'because'. For example, XBox removed capabilities from it's gave consoles, HP printers won't operate unless it has Official, HP sanctioned ink cartridges ONLY, or the most popular one is that cable providers get into an argument with channels, so it just disappears. No price reduction because a formerly included channel just disappears, customers have to just suck it up because it's allowed by the 'contract'. And, the customer often can't even cancel the contract, but the provider can change anything it wants. What a sucky version of a one way binding to the customer only contract.
The Result of Ever Changing 'Contracts' and Terms of Service
If AI LLMs are so smart (ok well, trained or trainable), let's train one on copyright. Then we can use it to see if the output of one is in violation of copyright. Oh wait, that won't work, copyright is so messed up that the copyright AI will need full time psychiatric up because it will almost immediately become insane.
Paedophiles
Wow, those paedophiles are sneaky SOBs. They are the only ones in the world that need their messages encrypted I guess. Well, now be aware, that the UK recognizes that all encrypted messages are from/to paedophiles and those creeps will now be going to jail.
Get Out the Dead Again
Well, it's time for dead people to start spamming the FCC with comments against this new proposal. Beware, the website is going to crash again from a new mysterious DDoS attack. The spam bots will bury this proposal too, just you watch.