Saturday, April 24, 2010

Why Give It Away? Do They Love Us?

KPC Friend Robet Eaton writes:

I saw David Pogue (NYTimes' tech guru) wonder aloud in his blog "why would these cable companies offer free wi-fi service???" It seemed like a scam, or a trojan horse to him.

He got his response quickly, in comments. It wasn't a scam, it was competition. "The free WiFi hot spots are an enticement to ward off defections to Verizon (and its Fios service) and AT&T."

I love how incredulous people can be that actual competition brings about such favorable results for us consumers ...


Well, yes, RE, the incredulity is amusing. But their refusal to update their beliefs can only be explained as religious devotion to a view that markets are bad, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://pileusblog.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/competition-is-good-edition-1000000-and-counting/

Carpe Web said...

You might be assuming too much about the beliefs that need updating. Perhaps their beliefs are that Comcast is a dishonest/incompetent/name-your-favorite-criticism-of-big-cable-here provider, and therefore they assumed that something other than competition was motivating Comcast.

An anti-Comcast view is not necessarily an anti-market view. But it could cloud one's views of markets. Certainly, "deregulation" of telecommunications clouded mine.

Best regards,
Jim