I’m shocked /s
Don’t companies usually wait until after their IPO to enshittify their products?
Musk really needs to do it now to get a decent listing.
The problem is he has no income for all his AI stuff, Twitter advertising revenue is still in the toilet, and spaceX’s biggest customer is the US government, but the Democrats fucking hate him, and the mid terms are coming up.
So time to squeeze the little guys to get some revenue.
And they will drop the extra charge after you’ve paid it off right… right guys?
I wouldn’t be surprised if they make this retroactive to even apply to the people who bought their hardware.
When I was 18, I signed up for an internet service for the first time. They asked if I wanted to rent or purchase a modem/router, and because I did the math and saw that it would be more economical in the long run to purchase it, that’s what I chose. I paid extra up front so that the hardware would belong to me and I could take it with me later.
Fast forward to moving day, when I canceled my internet plan and boxed up my modem/router to take with me. A few months later, I got a call from the company. They said I never returned my hardware and that I owe them a fee to replace it. I told them I purchased the hardware up front; it’s mine, I already paid for it.
Their answer? “No you didn’t.”
The gaslighting commenced as they claimed to have no record of that. They continued to harass me for months, threatening legal action and debt collection and all that. Eventually I got fed up and just paid the fine. Essentially paid for it twice, but fuck me I guess. This is america where the consumer is always wrong.
Just like when Comcast forced me to rent their modem if I wanted a static IP on my business account. Fuck them and I made dynamic IP work for my needs. I did have to move my email server to a 3rd party host.
Rat bastards. They should be tried for their crimes against humanity.
My dad just switched to Starlink. I advised he watch his bill closely because Musk is going to start playing money games any day. He blew me off, confident they would operate like most other cable companies and keep his prices set for 2-3 years even without a specific contract lock. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya’.
Also, double fuck you to Musk. My parents are rural and this is far and away the best service they’re able to get. Instead of paying around what the others charge plus a little more because they are better, my folks are going to get taken to the cleaners.
confident they would operate like most other cable companies
Oh god, imagine this being the best case scenario
I remember the first time i had to go in to drop off my set top boxes after a move (back near the turn of the century) and the cable company customer service was behind 6" of bulletproof lexan.
With a bank style secure drawer to deal with the boxes.
Not a good sign for agreeable customer service.
Wasn’t Biden going to build out the broadband infrastructure to reach rural communities? What happened to that project? Did it get DOGEd?
Yeah, billion$ that got bogged down by state level politics, telecomm company resistance, and lack of Democratic party backbone.
I don’t know how much momentum was even left to get DOGE’d.
That sucks…
I mean, it’s a huge logistical feat. But it’s not like nothing’s been done on the same scale before. The people have roads, they have landline, I don’t see why they can’t have fiberoptics.
Billions have been given to telecoms for ages to build out infrastructure to rural areas and it always fails. The ISPs say oh its so expensive, we only got this tiny fraction done, and the government nods their heads and gives them billions more when they say theyll do it next time, and the same thing happens over and over.
Damn, why is the world like this? Or at least this country?
I mean, I know the answer is corruption, corporatism, neoliberalism, and capitalism. But, like, why are those things the way the world is? It didn’t have to be this way…
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It happens up here in Canada as well, so not just a USA thing, at least with the telecoms.
And ya it really sucks.
I don’t know if it’s related to Biden but lots of small towns in New Hampshire have fiber, meaning better internet than a lot of big coastal cities.
I remember one of the big talking points in all his speeches was how he was bringing high-speed internet to rural areas, so I’m guessing that means he made some sort of directive to prioritize that
The forever payment system at work. Always pay and its never yours.
My ISP tried to push me to accept their wifi routers with the plan, they would have been free for 6 months and then only 14€/month, i.e 168€/year. For two TP-Link Deco routers that are less than that to buy new.
But hey, they would upgrade them every 5 years for ““free””!
I got a mini dish for emergencies as I live in an area where natural disasters can occur.
My plan was to just keep it around just in case in a paused state and on occasional trips, or in case of emergencies id have it.
Then they stopped letting you pause it and charged $7.50 CAD/m to keep it in standby, but it came with unlimited low speed, but enough to do emails or browse websites. Kinda shitty but okay, having data always working wasnt terrible for the $7.50, and could even toss it in car for road trips where there’s bad internet for music streaming.
Then a couple weeks ago, they emailed saying its going to $15/m and it would no longer work while in motion.
Fuck that. I canceled.
Its definitely to juice the IPO revenue numbers.
Edit: oh, and the free pausing, to paid standby to the price increase on standby was all in under a year.
If it’s subscription based then they need to care, maintain, and upgrade the hardware for free each time it’s due.
In their world, it will never be due for such things. They will just move it to “not supported” and claim “upgrades are not available”; because they didn’t make any.
Yeah, it’s a rip off move.
“You will own, uh, nothing, and you will, uh, be memed”
- Some Afrikaner billionaireI really really wish I had a viable alternative
I feel that way about Comcast…
Enshittification
Starlink finds ways to boost IPO and make a Elon richer.
Petty rent seeking dildos. This will surly make them a trillion dollar business.
For some, Starlink will literally be dropping through their roofs soon.
MAKE. IT. SHITTY(-ER)!
PCMag notes that you can save money in the long run by buying the router from a retailer. “Over the long term, the $10 monthly fee isn’t a great deal, either, since it means forking over $360 during a three-year subscription,” the article said. “The standard dish currently retails for $349 at retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart, but it’s been discounted to $199 or even $89.”
Seriously, this is raging for the sake of raging. It’s not like they stopped selling the equipment.