GodlessCommieScratch a liberal...
gandalf_der_12terule
ideatrashExtortion Masquerading As Normal Business, Verizon Edition
It is difficult to express how the feel of capitalism has changed over the course of my lifetime.
When I was a kid, you didn’t know who was calling you on the telephone, and that was normal. It was a really big deal when *69 was rolled out, and you could call back the person who last called you. For a charge, of course.
Not too long after that, caller ID began to roll out. And we willingly, if not enthusiastically, paid monthly for the privilege of seeing what phone number was calling you. Then, if you were fancy, you paid an additional charge to see the name associated with that phone number.
Today, “unknown caller” is so unusual it was the title of a thriller over a decade ago. Caller ID is such a default now that spam-detecting software, originally only available through third-party services, is preinstalled on many phones by the carrier.
Like mine, Verizon. And that is where the problems start.
There are a lot of businesses and private individuals that use voice-over-ip (VOIP) phones legitimately, including work from home solutions and providing phone service to a building or campus. VOIP is also used by scammers, true, but that logic applies to any form of communication.
I know that legitimate companies use these VOIP numbers, because there were several instances of legitimate companies calling me and being labeled as spam by Verizon’s built-in anti-spam. There’s no real way to explicitly determine what gets labeled as spam by this built-in and preinstalled program.
Recently, because Verizon decided without my input that a number was a spam caller, I didn’t get visible or audible notifications of when a legitimate company was trying to return a phone call at my request. I added the company to my contacts to mark it as legitimate… and that wasn’t enough. I had previously added a handful of other numbers to the spam filter’s allow list, but this time, I got an error.
I had five phone numbers whitelisted. Verizon thinks that’s plenty, and very prominently let me know that I could double that number for a monthly fee. (Screenshots below)
And that’s where it became clear that although they were treating it as business as usual, it was really extortion and profiteering.
“Nice phone line you got there, kid. Be a shame if something happened to it. Be a real shame if you didn’t get important phone calls.”
I don’t mind paying for an actual service where there’s value added, or the service has a clear relationship to the amount of work needed.
Verizon wants to charge me $4 a month for storing approximately 300 BYTES of data. And if I don’t pony up that amount, then my choices are being subjected to spam callers, or Verizon intentionally degrading their primary reason for getting paid by not delivering phone calls to me in a predictable way.
I wish this was an isolated experience. From companies “resubscribing you” if you even visit their website after canceling, to this crap with Verizon, to Brinks Home literally telling me that they would continue service — and billing me for that service — for thirty days after the countersigned cancellation, there’s been a massive shift in sensibilities.
Rather than seeing the customer as someone to work with, capitalism in the US has turned into customer predation, extracting as much cash from you as they can get away with.
Including charging you extra to give you an enshittified version of the service you originally had.
In the meantime, I’m in the market for a new mobile carrier.
Featured Image by rmartinr from Pixabay
#capitalism #lateStageCapitalism
The US Operation Peter Pan stole Cuban children from their Cuban parents
The cop or bad cop, they're still a cop
Walmart, Circle K, BP, 7-11 among gas stations sued for using AI-powered tool Kalibrate to collude and raise California gas prices
Galactic StoneIf you can't hold it in your hands, you got suckered.
BlueTea2More Perfect Union - We Talked To A Former Surveillance Official. What He Told Us Will Shock You.
Liberals will always punch left to defend capitalism and fascism
Newsom urges a national ‘billionaires’ tax’ while fighting one in California
Newsom urges a national ‘billionaires’ tax’ while fighting one in California - Lemmy.World
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is considering a run for president as he approaches the end of his term, called for a national “billionaires’ tax” on Friday even as he fights another proposal targeting the wealthy in his home state. Newsom also said the U.S. government should own a stake in artificial intelligence companies. His proposals, outlined in a Substack post, aligns him with the Democratic Party’s populist left, and he argued that urgent changes are needed to prevent the elite concentration of wealth and power from undermining democracy. “It’s time for an economic reset for America,” Newsom wrote. The governor announced his agenda a day after an influential health care union in California pledged to go forward with a ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026.