@DEAD7 Might Just Be Right

[DEAD7]

Yes, but the causal chain doesn't just stop with the consumers, either. The behavior is cyclical. People generally take what they are offered, and consumers interests and desires can be and are manipulated on a daily basis.

To a certain extent, as mentioned before people are not just gonna pay any price. They will just go without the service forcing the company to lower prices or close up shop... this leaves business's ultimately at the -mercy- of consumers.

 

[The Real]

To a certain extent, as mentioned before people are not just gonna pay any price. They will just go without the service forcing the company to lower prices or close up shop... this leaves business's ultimately at the -mercy- of consumers.

It depends on the service. The service could be more or less necessary, and its particular customer could be more or less well-off. And a monopoly or oligopoly will almost always continue to eat, even if they are ripping off customers a great deal. Can you think of services that any large population has ever sworn off completely due to bad pricing?

 

[Black smoke and cac jokes]

Thanks for not being a dikk about it. Informative post breh.
Do you agree with net neutrality? A company being able to restrict the flow of information is pretty disgusting. Dead is right on if consumers would stop acting like fukking zombies things like this wouldn't happen.

Look at @88m3 situation. The fact that he has to pay $340 just to watch TV and talk on the phone is ridiculous. If consumers said enough is enough and made a mass migration to a cheaper service they would get the message. Obviously Verizon and companies like it have the legal system in their pocket so maybe our strength as consumers is all we have.

It's cool breh, always willing to share what I know.

Do I agree with net neutrality? It's a pretty difficult question to answer breh. Do I want internet providers to not restrict my data usage because of the sites I visit? Of course not, but that will be selfish though. Think about this way, you have companies that are allowed to have higher rates depending on the geographic location they target right? So why is that OK but ISP can not? It's a tragedy that the market is set up like that in different industries, so I understand Verizon's frustration. They are thinking about their economies of scale since their provision of data is a variable cost, meaning their cost go up per unit of data usage, so why shouldn't they be allowed to charge the company that causes this increase?

Do I feel that they should be able to put this burden on consumers? Hell fukking no, but they should be able to threaten Netflix, who btw have an insignificant amount of operational cost due to their, in proportion, free access to internet. It's a difficult question and I agree with your point but you have to look at both sides of it.

Now I support a revolt for other reasons than materialistic agendas so I wouldn't consider us "zombies" in this aspect. And in regards to 88's bill, mine isn't close to that and I live in the Berkeley which is dominated by Comcast so I'm guessing a larger city with more options would have better offers than what he currently has.

Sorry to make this post long and throwing all these business terms at you but it's good if you know this kind of stuff so you can analyze business articles better. Business articles are exactly like political ones, you have to understand why each side are pushing for their agenda, it's not always obvious.

 

[mbewane]

Thanks for not being a dikk about it. Informative post breh.
Do you agree with net neutrality? A company being able to restrict the flow of information is pretty disgusting. Dead is right on if consumers would stop acting like fukking zombies things like this wouldn't happen.

Look at @88m3 situation. The fact that he has to pay $340 just to watch TV and talk on the phone is ridiculous. If consumers said enough is enough and made a mass migration to a cheaper service they would get the message. Obviously Verizon and companies like it have the legal system in their pocket so maybe our strength as consumers is all we have.

Thing is, how many consumers actually have all the information, or are willing to take the time to look for it? a "free" market also means perfect information, which obviously never has and never will exist, that's one of the reasons that big corporations have an advantage because they have more means to inform the public on what benefits them as opposed to maybe a smaller company with a better product that can't invest in communication. And no, the internet does not lead to "perfect information".

Add to that the mentality of "I can't change things on my own" (similar to why people have a hard time making eco-friendly changes) and nothing changes. Regular people ain't got time to worry about organizing a boycott or whatever you want to call it, nor to seek out better alternatives. They got jobs, kids, occupations, etc. We all know about child labor in manufacturing our shoes, t-shirts etc, we all are against it (well,probably not "free" marketeers but whatever) but we still buy those same clothes, because we can't be bothered to look for alternatives.

 

[DEAD7]

Thing is, how many consumers actually have all the information, or are willing to take the time to look for it? a "free" market also means perfect information, which obviously never has and never will exist, that's one of the reasons that big corporations have an advantage because they have more means to inform the public on what benefits them as opposed to maybe a smaller company with a better product that can't invest in communication. And no, the internet does not lead to "perfect information".

Add to that the mentality of "I can't change things on my own" (similar to why people have a hard time making eco-friendly changes) and nothing changes. Regular people ain't got time to worry about organizing a boycott or whatever you want to call it, nor to seek out better alternatives. They got jobs, kids, occupations, etc. We all know about child labor in manufacturing our shoes, t-shirts etc, we all are against it (well,probably not "free" marketeers but whatever) but we still buy those same clothes, because we can't be bothered to look for alternatives.

 

[Black smoke and cac jokes]

Thing is, how many consumers actually have all the information, or are willing to take the time to look for it? a "free" market also means perfect information, which obviously never has and never will exist, that's one of the reasons that big corporations have an advantage because they have more means to inform the public on what benefits them as opposed to maybe a smaller company with a better product that can't invest in communication. And no, the internet does not lead to "perfect information".

Add to that the mentality of "I can't change things on my own" (similar to why people have a hard time making eco-friendly changes) and nothing changes. Regular people ain't got time to worry about organizing a boycott or whatever you want to call it, nor to seek out better alternatives. They got jobs, kids, occupations, etc. We all know about child labor in manufacturing our shoes, t-shirts etc, we all are against it (well,probably not "free" marketeers but whatever) but we still buy those same clothes, because we can't be bothered to look for alternatives.

Actually pure competition markets requires perfect information, not a free market. A free market with perfect information would be reduced to a competitive market.

 

[mbewane]

Actually pure competition markets requires perfect information, not a free market. A free market with perfect information would be reduced to a competitive market.

Isn't a free market supposed to be pure competition? What's the difference between pure competition and a competitive market, the degree of competition? I guess free-marketeers would want the market to be as competitive as it can be, and if possible to be perfect.

 

[Black smoke and cac jokes]

Isn't a free market supposed to be pure competition? What's the difference between pure competition and a competitive market, the degree of competition? I guess free-marketeers would want the market to be as competitive as it can be, and if possible to be perfect.

The difference lies in the end results; a pure competitive market requires the market to maintain the laissez-faire approach while free markets are driven by the demand for the product and could therefore have a variety of different consequences to the overall market. There's really no measurement of the degree of competition, it's just if the theory allows change or not. A pure competitive market wouldn't while with a free market, you really don't know.

To your last point, real free marketers aka libertarians aka confused economists wish for an unattainable utopia of free markets being forever profitable for everyone.

 

[DEAD7]

To your last point, real free marketers aka libertarians aka confused economists wish for an unattainable utopia of free markets being forever profitable for everyone.

Doesnt have to be anywhere remotely close to a utopia to be better than what we have now

 

[Black smoke and cac jokes]

Doesnt have to be anywhere remotely close to a utopia to be better than what we have now

I agree but we seem to continue to exclaim the extreme's of all the economic positions on this forum so why not continue the tradition