11/10/2023 0 Comments Netflix throttled themselves![]() Web browsing, online gaming, and torrenting (the legal stuff of course, like Linux ISOs) are all pretty fast. For most things, it's actually pretty fast. Why am I getting so heated about all of this? I pay about $50/month to Comcast every month for 50 Mbps Internet. You're going to pay out the nose for that tap water, but you won't be happy about it. It would be like dying of thirst and being approached by a slick salesman offering tap water for $20/bottle (Comcast) and a second vendor selling brown, murky water for $10/bottle (DSL). Yet, Comcast reports record earnings every quarter, boasts about how many subscribers they have, and remains the only realistic ISP choice in just about every market they're in, despite terrible service. We should be taking it seriously when companies like Comcast shit all over their customers. You need Internet access to search for jobs, fact-check political candidates, read the news, and learn new things. Yet, the United Nations says that Internet access is a basic human right. Some people say that Internet service is "optional", so it shouldn't be regulated like a utility. ![]() So unless you are lucky enough to live in one of a few neighborhoods in America with that third path ISP such as Google Fiber, you're basically forced to opt for Cable. DSL is typically delivered over legacy telephone line connections, and has historically been much slower than Cable, with more latency. If you don't want to be ripping your hair out in frustration at how slow your Internet is, you have the "choice" between DSL and Cable. Dial-up is extremely slow and Satellite has an insane amount of latency, so we're going to throw those out. In the vast majority of places in America, there are typically four types of Internet service available: Dial-up, Satellite, DSL, and Cable. This does not necessarily mean that there's only one company offering a service in an area, or that this service is essential to life (like a water and sewer service), it just means that it is most efficient for a single firm to provide a service, and one firm usually has a massive cost advantage over the others.Ĭomcast boasts all of these customers and makes all of this money because, despite how it shouldn't be like this in a "free market" system, their customers really don't have any other choice. Why is this? Being an Internet Service Provider (ISP) is a natural monopoly. In 2012, Comcast boasted 18.6 million Internet customers and made $12.1 billion. On the other hand, Comcast is one of the most successful companies in the US. Also, they are consistently given terrible ratings by every consumer advocate organization across the board. People would rather get audited by the IRS than call up Comcast to deal with a faulty cable modem. Two nationwide surveys done by the American Customer Satisfaction Index in 20 showed that "Comcast had the worst customer satisfaction rating of any company or government agency in the country, including the Internal Revenue Service." Wow, just let that sink in for a second. First, let's talk about the worst company in AmericaĬomcast is one of the most hated companies in America, yet inexplicably, also one of the most successful.
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