AT&T loses nearly 1M TV customers after raising DirecTV prices
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
This should be illegal. I don't mean fines, either. An executive somewhere cooked up a plan to lie to regulators, lie to shareholders, lie to their customer base, and lie to the general public. The only way to make large companies stop acting like they're above the law is to throw some millionaire executives in jail. A regular jail, none of that "bookcase in your cell" shit. Even if the plan didn't come from them. They steer the ship in times of prosperity; they sink with the ship when it goes off course and gets a hole.
Executives will make a dishonest decision knowing the consequences. Then they'll make $100m off the decision, get fined $20m by Uncle Sam, get a $20m golden parachute, and then do it all over again next week. Because it made financial sense to break the law at that time.
Fining a billion dollar company because an individual decided to lie is a consequence-less punishment in the same way that stealing a $1 cheeseburger from McDonalds corporate is a victimless crime.
A monetary fine would be trivial. Anything else likely wouldn't create any counter-incentive.
At a minimum though I'd like to see someone convicted, nine if this settle without admitting wrongdoing. Then the next company to hire them would at least have to answer why they are hiring a convicted fraudster.
If they've hiked the prices by at least 10% in preceding years without losing many customers then they're about even terms of revenue and may be more profitable
Note that the exact quote is "enable the merged company to reduce prices". They may not have followed that with the obvious "but the merged company plans to take advantage of its new market power to raise prices".
"will enable". Yes, it enabled them to lower prices. It didn't say they would lower prices. So not really a lie.
But the point is well taken - that judge could have seen past that and asked for an literal promise with actual billion dollar teeth in it if they failed to deliver.
Can't jail people over these things. Lower prices when, for how long? Never increase them?
My two favorite networks Discovery and the History channel are dead.
I cut the cord in 2008 over shady billing practices from Comcast. I pay Xfinity for internet because I have to. Never again will I pay for TV.
What do either of our opinions have to do with this article?
Maybe some occasional youtube here and there, but certainly nothing like the the typical 20 minutes of ads in every hour of programming commonly found on broadcast TV and most cable channels.
It's hard to believe there was a time that people consumed this many commercials, and didn't think anything of it.
I also think that ads are one of those things that you accept until having experienced an ad-free alternative.
I agree that the format is stale, but for some, it's a good form of "background noise"; my wife loves to have the TV on even if she isn't watching it, while reading, studying, etc.
There's also no other real choice if you want live content (primarily for sports). You still need access to your local affiliate channels to watch this content, and for some, an antenna is not good enough or even an option at all.
So Xfinity's billing practices are okay?
We picked DirecTV Now as the TV channels provider. Yes, they subsequently raised prices, but we were grandfathered in under the previous plan. It was acceptable.
The thing that made us drop it was the slideshow-style insert ads promoting The Last O.G., Teen Titans Go, and one of two other shows on AT&T's own-content channel, accompanied by obnoxious, loud "music". AT&T basically annoyed us into dropping their online television service. All my "told you so" thoughts were of no comfort. I knew AT&T was going to AT&T, and said so, but nobody listened to me, and so they all got to see firsthand why I hate AT&T so much.
So we decided to switch to Sling. It took all of ten minutes. AT&T has operated forever on the "no consumer choice" business model as a telecom. If it keeps pulling the same anti-consumer nonsense in a low-friction competitive market, it will die the ultra-slow death of a company that can still barely succeed just because it's too big to fail.
And to be honest, we are watching less and less of the broadcast channels, in favor of commercial-free services. The AT&T ad starkly highlighted the sheer number of advertisements that were entering our home via television, because they were all replaced with the most annoying reminder ever conceived. Netflix has no ads. The good tier of Hulu has no ads. Then you can switch over to the television channels and get the same content, only when the channel pushes it, with 1/3 ads.
Anecdotally (yes, just me) - I've built a "whole piracy stack on my NAS" - Sonarr, Radarr, Deluge, NZBGet, Plex, Pushbullet, with paid services for omgwtfnzbs, usenet and oznzb (I bought plex lifetime) - oh and a homerun-HD plugged into a new aerial I just had fitted to my house (pirates don't seem to care about my local UK TV).
I also pay for netflix, amazon prime, semi-premium-cable (that also provides my internet) and pay my UK TV license.
Maybe 80-90%+ of what I take from "the piracy stack" is available on the "plethora of stuff I pay for". The problem is (as with the early days of music downloads) there's no decent way of wrangling that together into a nice UI to consume from.
This is silly.
When I realized this was silly, was when I found myself deliberately switching from plex to netflix to watch a show, for the sole reason that "I wanted netflix to know I was watching it and to bump up the viewer count, so they didn't cancel it".
Which reminds me.. I'd be fascinated to know if there was a Netflix stat of "existing subscribers that watch a show from episode 2 onwards"
Which further reminds me that if anybody ever wishes to sell Helm/K8/docker to the masses, this is the perfect ingress.
99.999% of the people would rather just overpay for cable than deal with that, so it's a far cry from a killer.
I log and just say "I want to watch this". Similar to how you'd have previously used a Tivo that sat over all your potential TV channels. I turn on my PC in the morning and get some push-bullet notifications of new episodes, I load up Plex on my TV and see them all sat there in a single "Here's what's new" place.
I guess it's similar to what Android/Apple TV are trying to do - but it's better.
That was a stat that was tracked internally. It wasn't that high, because most people watched a new show because someone told them it was good, and they were already a Netflix subscriber. Not a lot of people would pirate one episode of a Netflix show and then sign up to watch the rest. They either pirated the whole thing or signed up to watch the whole thing.
If they were already a subscriber they just watched it on Netflix.
There was no way content was going to let third parties basically take the place of Cable at a fraction of the cost. What will be interesting is if we end up with bundlers to combine billing because of subscription burnout and whether it will just be the Cable companies.
Honestly, I wonder if this is somewhere device manufacturers could get an edge. They already have to build the integrations for their individual platforms, so they could wire them together into an interface which says "I just want to watch Black Lagoon, not worry about whose catalog it's in this week."
I wonder if the money people would pay for "the slickest smart TV experience on the market" exceeds the kickback for putting the hard-coded Netflix and Amazon remote buttons, which only serve to reinforce the silos.
so when the vestigial bill changes price, it's enough to call people into action.
A return to the "cable model", but with refined content choice may win out. Already an average sized household subscribing to several services rivals a cheaper cable bill.
Now you also have all these services having exclusives to get lock in. But to get all this top exclusive content, you need to pay for 12 services which is basically back to cable.
We really need a new model. Customers would prefer micro-transactions and providers and producers want recurring locked in revenue. Something has to give.
There are lots of companies that are vying for your attention, and back when the choice was Cable or Cable plus Netflix, it was an easier bet to have Netflix. Now, you have Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, CBS All Access, AMC and FX (I think?) have their own streaming, HBO, SHO, and soon the Mouse is going to have a must have service. And that's not even considering the amount of time people spend on "alternative" forms of entertainment, such as video games.
It's all just too much, so I think there will be a lot of churn with Netflix. Instead of getting 12 months of service from Netflix, I think we'll see people hopping around more between 2-3 different services each month.
100% of nothing is < a 50/50 split of millions of dollars. Lots of these apps are going to realize that.
Yes, content-owner owned streaming services, and note that both DirecTV and Comcast are (or are owned by) content owners which have or are imminently launching streaming services focussed on first-party content.
It's so literally insane to me that Ma Bell, AT&T, is allowed to acquire anything. It's like 2 horcruxes short of a full-blown Voldemort at this point.
Maybe you mean 10MB/s (80Mb)?
> It would look worse than 1080p or 1440p at the same bitrate
Good news then, the 1080p streams are even lower bitrate (4-5 Mbit)
Thank you for the info.
Does anyone honestly believe they won't leverage their more consolidated position every last time?
Of course the prices went up. They thought they had a fairly captive audience. And that was more true years ago when the impact of a switch was higher.
Today?
Great. They got what they deserved.
My family watches a lot more TV than me though. Last year we switched from Dish to DirecTV. Before Dish, we just had cable.
I noticed going from Cable to Dish their quality of boxes and hardware was so much superior. The guide seemed laggy and slow on cable, while Dish seems awesome. I believe it's because Dish makes their hardware and software themselves, while the local cable company just buys CableLabs compatible equipment running on slow Motorola boxes running Java slapping their logo on the menu but otherwise I don't think the cable company really has much control over the user experience and just relabelling other people's products. I know the boot screen had a huge Java logo, and from my experience running Java based apps on the computer is slow too. We've also switched out boxes and had Scientific Atlanta and Cisco boxes. So haven't been impressed with cable. I'm thinking maybe the cable is more of a commodity now, while satellite has to be more custom. Only 2 satellite companies, multiple cable companies. One's dealing with stuff in space, while the other is dealing with wires buried underground. So I think there's more innovation in the satellite space because it's more complicated. I think everyone can agree it's cool to say there television comes from outer space! Maybe the aliens are watching Honey Boo Boo and judging us all based on that single television show. Probably thinking we're all weirdos and they are the superior species.
But to save money we switched to DirecTV, I think they might make their own stuff too but their software quality seems worse than Dish but better than Cable. I know lately half the time it doesn't even record what's scheduled. It's been slightly over a year and my folks are thinking of switching back to cable though. They merged with another cable company, so hoping maybe new subscribers get something newer than before. I think if money wasn't a big deal, I'd rather just pay the extra money and get Dish. So I think i'd rate cable as worse, DirecTV as next best and Dish as the best top of the line, but that's just my personal experience. Maybe cable systems are better in other areas of the country.
I know I heard people do that, switch back and forth every year or so for the promotions too.
We only have cable for internet and home phone now which works good enough. Back when we lived an hour away with the same company I'd frequently have outages, had the guy come out and adjust the strength he said but the new place seems so much better. He installed an additional jack to separate the TV and modem and said the jack for the modem has a special high-speed data signal, not sure if true or not. My stepdad got cable at his place after not having it for years and was visiting and mentioned about them recommending a separate jack but he told me there's some ordinance against that in that city, unsure if true or not as seems odd to regulate how many cable jacks allowed in a room. I feel like it probably also depends on the community and area too with what installer you get. The old place was a poorer larger city, where the new place is more rural wealthier area popularity with retired people so I doubt they are as busy with calls so maybe can spend more time to set up things the best.
I'm interested in full time RVing, so I figured I'd get rooftop Dish dome and get a Verizon hotspot as there are some unlimited plans the RV community recommends. Verizon is the best nationwide network, because law enforcement and emergency personal use them, as they got grants to expand their network I've heard which benefits everyone else too.
So not sure how much that would change my internet quality, but something feels better about that. If something messes up, just switch out the hardware as it's wireless. No one has to come out and mess with wiring and other stuff. So I feel a more consistent experience, as I feel like the cable at the old place was screwed up. Probably using the same wiring as when the house was built, while this new area is newer to having cable as many residents had satellite before cable was here. Also probably newer equipment too used on the backend here since newer build-out. After getting cable set up here, never had to see the cable guy again. While at the old house they'd come out monthly sometimes weekly to adjust things. So aggravated. I called one time in the middle of the night staying up on the computer and got hung up on, I don't know if a mistake on their end or maybe the woman thought I was drunk because I was tired. It's like I already knew the routine. Unplug the router, unplug the modem, wait 30 seconds, etc. So sure maybe had a bit of a attitude but felt like no one listened to me or knew what they were doing and didn't have any control.
One thing interesting about Satellite though, watching on-demand stuff still uses your internet, connected via the Wi-Fi. I think it'd be cool if storming bad, they could seamlessly switch over getting the same bits over the internet instead of from the satellites. I kinda feel like the cable companies hate the idea of people using their internet for TV instead of actually paying them for TV. just seems so ironic you are helping your competitor deliver video, which is why net neutrality is a great thing. I rather ISPs be dumb pipes or more like highways just to move around the bits.
Only internet choices here is cable, DSL from local phone company.. or I guess in theory if had a regular landline instead a VOIP based one(which Cable phone systems are built around, but use their private backbone instead of the public routes) you could still use dial up. Satellite Internet is a option too, but the latency is what kills you. Play a game and your movements has to be sent up to the satellite, down to a ground station hopping around the internet like normal and then beamed back up to the satellite beamed back down to the ground to your house. But i know there's some projects and companies working on improving this space, I'd love if some day great satellite internet comparable to cable so no longer tied to a local provider, and also be useful for RVers too.
I know in Florida they actually tax satellite more than cable too, which there's been court battles over. The theory is they don't have as much local infrastructure so they pay less taxes, so they should be taxed more to make up for it than cable. Probably mostly employees at the HQ, installer contractors across the country and a ground station or two somewhere, while cable has employees and equipment all over the place so they pay for all the permits to run the wires, franchised fees, etc.
Also when traveling in a RV, Dish has a dedicated site for RVers. I'm in a few groups on FB and this is a complaint people have about DirecTV because when you move around people complain about local channels. They are spot beamed, so you have to call up the 1800 number and change your address. People would mention they'd give them a address of a random house from the white pages, while telling them to keep the billing address the same as their mail forwarder in the state of their domicile but agents would get confused and schedule a move instead. While with Dish, just go online and change your zip code. It's a niche market though, many people see RVs are a vacation, while some people full time so it's a concept that's hard for people to understand if not familiar with it.
But one of my points was also competition. I feel like satellite industry can be more competitive since I don't think the local cities have much control over them, and not much stuff to build out. Like for example Verizon was rolling out FIOS but stopped. Google Fiber seems to have similar problems of rolling out, for example look at the case in Louisville. Some cities even wanted to offer their own fiber networks but the cable companies sued them saying they wasn't allowed. So legal problems of permitting and stuff, then you have to actually just digging trenches and running cables. Even cities that offer Fiber, it's more of a street by street thing if it's available or not instead of city wide.
I know SpaceX is working on internet. There's another company offering satellite internet too that's supposed to be comparable to cable but they use spot beaming too for load balancing. So not useful for RVers or even smart cars that need internet access on the go. However having Satellite Radio in the car, going under bridges, parking garages, tunnels, even some area under the powerlines at a intersection it goes out so that's also a flaw... I'm not sure what's Tesla plans are for that area, as I think Elon being involved in both companies is related but haven't been keeping up with the news.
But imagine if you had high quality satellite internet, no towers to build and you'd just need to send out contractors to install it on peoples houses, RVs, or whatever. Some people are probably capable enough to just do it themselves after you mail the kit, I know most people just lease satellite TV hardware but you can actually buy it straight out like if using it in a RV. Would expand options with limited areas. Just have to build the satellites and get approval to launch it, build out some ground stations and ready to roll. There's even a federal law limiting how much local city governments can regulate satellites called OTARD. Some cities even still have ordinances that ban satellite tv, even though it's been overruled already. HOA's do the same. Cities lose money when people have satellite, HOA's think they are ugly. There are proposals to expand OTARD to cover 5G too as some cities aren't supporting the 5G rollout. It's shame the cable industry is a protected monopoly.
I'm a major tech geek, which probably a lot of people are on HN. So things like satellites, cruise ships that are entire floating cities, rvs fascinate me. I know some people are obsessed with elevators or trains. So just wanted to disclose that, as don't want to sound like an advertisement for Dish.
Also feel like when starting a business, doing as much as you can possibly do yourself can let you have higher control of the quality of your product. Think Apple, they make the iPhone and MacBook and you can send SMS from your Mac using the modem in your phone. While say you are a huge hardware maker, you could sell Laptops with Windows on them and phones with Android but you don't have much control to integrate them.
“More profit”
“A million people end their subscriptions”
Wha??
Maybe some of the smarter bears will set calendar notices for the promo end dates. I did that for years to stay on the lower price tier. Worked, but it was a 6 month hassle.
Today, I'm Internet only. Stream some things, but mostly don't care. Too many other interesting things out there.