Disclosures: I was college roomies with two TVWorks engineering execs, and I worked with them at WebTV and Microsoft, and there we all worked with a few more guys that have become BD and Marketing execs back in Phili at Comcast HQ. Nice folks. Good at their jobs. And, that'd probably why I'm so fucking chapped about the Comcast shackles...there's just no way out.
Punching bag: Comcast
A little over a year ago, my wife and I signed up for a Comcast triple play. $150. Not so bad, but not great. I had HBO with that. As bad as TV is, I could justify the entire triple play move for the final season of Sopranos. After the 1-year term expired, my bill went up $55, no warnings. $205. Now, that's close to my caffeine habit. Don't get me wrong, it aint cutting into my caffeine habit, but anything that gets close to that cost, I start to bitch. Like gasoline costs.
Anyway, I work way too fucking hard to enjoy Internet videos or TV that much. So, my wife calls Comcast to essentially say, "what the fuck" in her finishing-school-approved sorta way. She gets us hooked onto the latest promo at $40 less than the current bill, AND I have every imaginable channel. Great. I've watched the entire 3rd season of Weeds in the last 36 hours. I've also consumed a half-case of Benziger pinot. I'm certain those two things aren't unrelated. My mother-in-law has helped with that, both pro actively and because I tend to eat and drink as a mechanism for holding in check my famously acerbic tongue. I have no fear she'll find this post, as no one reads me, AND I just had to explain pop culture references in the Simpsons, like "crumpin". She is a judge... being out of touch with society is an occupational hazard.
So, getting back to the point.... I'm now watching more TV than I did a week ago, and I'm starting to quote Talladega Nights like a 13-year-old nonchalant. I know, I closed a sentence with a modifier used as a noun. But if you've seen Super Bad in a theater, you'll know why that grammatical error is appropriate. The point is, I am a bitch. I'm walking around the prison yard of home entertainment holding the shirt tales of Comcast for at least another year. And, next year, Comcast will hook me into another promo, and juice me for another $20. This can only end with me in a raisin farm in 2048, paying Comcast $1000 a month. I pray to god they have better uptime speeds by then.
Can this sort of captive consumerism work for much longer? I don't know. I'm still holdin a bunch of MSFT from the time I did there, but I know from that experience that benefiting from no competition is hardly a way to build a powerful brand. Besides, the Comcastic campaigns suck. I loathe spending money with bad marketers. I'm getting off of Windows next month. Comcast might want to sell my ass for a box of menthols before next Halloween because I don't think I can be strung along for another year.
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