Yesterday had a three hours on the phone with RCN (now Astound and owned by Stonepeak private equity) about them going from $32 (negotiated after their last more than tripling the price) to $112/mo for my mother's basic internet, lower-than-lowest-tier-currently-available service.

The call ended with me reporting Astound/RCN/Stonepeak to the Massachusetts Attorney General. I encourage everybody to do the same and talk about their battles with these evil price-gouging corporations.

Really i want us to collectivize this resistance too. We need the practice and thousands of dollars per family clawed back from ISPs, overcharging grocery stories, regressive fees and fines from governments and banks, impound lot legalized theft rings, etc would make a meaningful difference in many people's lives and free up more resources for survival and frankly more important struggles.

Anyone think they could make a job out of phone to phone, e-mail to e-mail combat with corporations?

A cooperative for dealing with overpricing and fees that has the intent of reducing the time and money 'tax' disproportionately imposed on people with less of both—that recognizes its work as a political and economic project—would be a natural launching pad for worker cooperatives to replace the worst offenders.

EDIT: Belatedly fixed a mistake where i said the buyer cooperative i'm describing should launch more buyer co-ops, when i meant worker co-ops or perhaps multistakeholder co-ops.

@mlncn (for context, i’m in the midst of starting an isp that’s a worker-consumer cooperative)

i’m a bit hesitant about pure buyers coops for internet. the whole pricing system that isps operate on is entirely disconnected from the costs. and you’re not going to break away from that unless you’re operating as an isp collectively.

and you’re not going to do that without worker-members.

@tryst 100% agree in the broad sense; really i was trying to pitch the big amorphous consumer coop in large part as a way to help cooperatives like yours, even to initiate and incubate them.

I'd love to hear more about the governance setup of the multi-stakeholder, worker and consumer, cooperative you are working on. For i have thought about this too much, enough that the best advice i can give is to not waste any time talking to me or even thinking *too* much about structure and go launch!