Discounts

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And then you lose any loyalty or banked credits because it’s technically a “New contract”

I had 100GB of data credit in my pre paid phone plan. I got 2GB a month for $5 unlimited talk and text starting in 2014, it’s a good deal for me. And you can imagine how long it took to bank 100GB even with the occasional free bonus data promo… That plan was replaced with a more expensive one but somehow I got grandfathered in to the cheap plan.

So naturally I didn’t want to rock the boat when I was getting my phone for $5 a month (their cheapest plan now is $20)

But they finally caught on and moved me to the $20 this year, they automatically transferred my data bank and sent me the new terms.

I double checked and while this was their cheapest monthly plan the 6 month plan would save me $80 in the long term so I called to get swapped and they said that I’d lose my data bank because it was a new contract. I argued that they changed my contract and I should have had an opportunity to choose which new contract my data gets transferred to.

I spent ages debating it, but there was nothing the rep or their supervisor could do to reward my 10 years with their company or compensate me for the service I had pre paid for (data) that they now expected me to subscribe to on their new terms to be able to access despite the contract I signed saying something totally different.

Their leading budget competitor had the exact same overall rate but for a yearly pre paid plan, and new customers got a 150GB data bank start up bonus. So my phone bill is paid up for the year now and I’ve still got a decent chunk of data and it didn’t cost more than I was prepared to pay the old company.

(and yes I do use it, I’m a substitute teacher so I’m always using my phone as a hot spot when I’m at a different school)

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This also works for Employees.

"I’ve been here 15 years. Can I get paid what the new hires get?

“Oh fuck no. No no no. Can’t believe you would ever suggest that.”

Joelk111

We made a spreadsheet at my job, and found an occurance of this. Brought it up to my manager. He seemed to agree, generally he’s a cool guy imo, but I have yet to see a change in my compensation.

AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet

It’s unlikely that your manager determines your pay rate and raises. That’s usually decided well up the chain.

AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet

What’s dumb is that Sirius will continue doing that indefinitely, but you have to play the game and call to cancel, then go do the whole song and dance. So I didn’t even activate the free shit that came with the car. I don’t want to play that game. I would pay the lower rate indefinitely if they just charged that, but I’m not going to play games.

AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet

It’s because the people who will actually cancel are the minority. The companies wouldn’t do this if it resulted in a net loss for them. They make more money being assholes, so they’ll always be assholes.

AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet

In the software industry you’re supposed to go get a new job every year or two until you’re making what you want. That’s how you get raises. It’s dumb.

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Change job all few years.

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Nowadays reliability and coverage is actually the selling point.

They may all have enough speed, but usually the expensive ISPs are more reliable. Mostly because the "cheap ISP"s are just the expensive ones in a trenchcoat selling excess bandwidth. But when the excess bandwidth is no longer excess, the cheap ones are the first to be cut off.

So if you don’t need 99.99…% uptime, the cheap ones are much better.

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I would pay the lower rate indefinitely if they just charged that, but I’m not going to play games.

Yeah. A/B tests have no way to prove the value of customer loyalty to a fair deal, so nobody knows how to implement it anymore.

There’s historic evidence - Coca Cola was infamously still 5¢ long after everything else went up in price, and it worked out.

But everyone is obsessed with “engagement” right now.

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Also most high level executives make up a fantasy version of how the business is being run and feel anyone who doesn’t agree is inherently wrong.

This was quite eye-opening for me, when I discovered it.

I’ve met Chief Information Security Officers who I wouldn’t trust to pick my antivirus product.

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I benefit from this because I’m always a returning customer.

Every time I have a service I haven’t cancelled in awhile, I go cancel and resubscribe just to make sure they haven’t hidden the cancel button.

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The value proposition of satellite radio is so incredibly bad for the overwhelming majority of people I don’t understand how they’re still in business.

Also the quality is awful. If I wanted audible compression artifacts I could dust off my late 90s mp3 collection.

Joelk111

Yeah, for sure. I’m not blaming him, to be clear.

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Corporations are creating multitudes of Arya Starks, all stropping their knives and waiting for a chance to wet the blade.

Refusing to reward a corporation for their bad behavior is incredibly cathartic.

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Absolutely. It’s poor business practices that broke the social contract. An employee owes them nothing.