Happy Election Day!

It seems appropriate today, election day, to talk about some aspects of tech policy. Industrial policy, which is increasingly dominated by tech issues, is going to be a large ongoing issue for our country. And this election, and every election, could be very consequential for some aspects of technology policy.

Spectrum and respect

Canceling cable service should be as simple as signing up. But with Spectrum, it’s an exhausting marathon of deliberate frustration.

I canceled Spectrum cable service for a relative this week.  You can sign up for Spectrum service in 7 nanoseconds on their website.  But canceling is apparently hard and a lot of work, so you have to call them.  The phone was answered by an exuberantly friendly young woman who wanted to know all about me, how my week was going, and what I had planned for the weekend.  I felt almost rude asking her to cancel the service; she was so darn friendly!

But as the conversation continued, my frustration grew. She said she had to ask me a few questions — which was a 20-question script of how I was using the internet, why I was canceling, what I was going to use instead, did I know how much I would miss it, etc.   I answered “I don’t know” to everything as this was for a family member, not me.  I then repeated that I wanted to cancel the service, and the rep said she would start working on it and put me on a brief hold.  We went through 3-4 cycles of the rep telling me, “Still working on it,” and putting me on another 5-minute hold.  There is no hold music at all; it’s almost as if they wanted me to think the call had been dropped.  

Finally, she returned after 25 minutes and said, “Good news, I’ve been able to lower your bill by 25%”.  I was a little flabbergasted.  I reminded her I didn’t ask for her to lower my bill.  I repeated my cancellation request with some heat.  The rep said, “OK, I will work on that; it will just take me a few more minutes.” We went back into the cycle of 5 minutes of silence followed by “Still working on it” for another 20 minutes.  She returned finally and said, “Good news, I’ve been able to cut your bill in half!”   Now I really got angry.  I asked for a supervisor.  She said there was no available escalation path; she was the only option.  I repeated my request. She finally consented, asked what date I would like it to be effective, and wrapped it up.

I know this all was theater.  She wasn’t my friend – the friendliness is a tactic to make the customer feel obligated to continue, to feel that they are in the wrong for cancelling. She wasn’t off working on anything during all those breaks; she was talking to other customers or doing the crossword, purposely creating frustration and creating the sense she was really working hard on my behalf. There was no hold music because they hoped I would give up.  The entire process is designed to dissuade anyone from continuing.  It is disrespectful, even abusive.  Cable internet providers have near-monopoly power in their markets, and they act like it.

Society has created corporations and granted them limited liability with the expectation that they will work for the benefit of society.  It is a great deal for corporations.  And if a corporation won’t police itself and treat its customers with basic respect, it deserves whatever pile of regulatory and legal bricks fall on its head.

The FTC’s click-to-cancel rules are a necessary intervention in this market to restore customer's rights, and the Democratic-majority commissioners are right to take this action.  I’ve read the dissents to the rule, and they have some good points; perhaps this is overreach.  However, legacy telecom providers have engaged in this abusive behavior for a long time and have shown no willingness to improve their business practices.  Corporations need to remember they are here to serve us, not wear us down.

Followup on broadband policy

An aspect of our broadband policy that really gripes me is how it is shoveling money toward telecom incumbents.   This recent chart from Chartbook makes it plain — the US telecom incumbents are not our friends; they have been screwing us for years.  We should not give them even the slightest assistance; we should focus our policies on scrappy entrepreneurial providers and solutions that bypass the incumbents.

CHIPS Act

The CHIPS Act is a key piece of industrial policy, helping the US to regain semiconductor manufacturing capacity. It had strong bipartisan support. It is now super puzzling why the Republicans would want to cancel the Chips Act. This is one of the world's most critical industries, creating a ton of great jobs, and we are geopolitically exposed due to our dependence on Taiwan. I am sure the Chips Act can be improved, but we should be full speed ahead in repatriating the chip business to North America.