Comcast and other ISPs asked FCC to ditch listing-every-fee rule. FCC says “no.”

128 points

The absolute balls on ISPs even complaining about that. I can’t even imagine charging people these fees and then basically saying “we charge our customers so many fees that we don’t actually know what the fees are, we just know we are getting every single penny we can put of them.”.

Also the balls on people who are downvoting this post. It’s like these people want to be charged more money without knowing why. Mind boggling how some don’t Like transparency

Imagine if the FCC didn’t say this. How much more everyone would be gouged without knowing why

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21 points

Exactly. If you’re unable to explain the fee, then you’re unable to prove it’s a justified one

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7 points

I’d like them to take it a step further and for each of those fees ask why it isn’t a part of the base price.

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4 points

Agreed. It’s actually a simple choice for them. Either explain every single item on the list, or advertise the real price of their service in all commercials and so on.

I’m guessing that they want to eat their cake and save it. Or maybe more accurately: keep their cake and eat yours…

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3 points

They’re probably all shocked-pikachu-face, too.

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94 points

Providers are free, of course, to not pass these fees through to consumers to differentiate their pricing and simplify their Label display if they believe it will make their service more attractive to consumers and ensure that consumers are not surprised by unexpected charges.

This official response is brillaint. “Feel free at any time to just stop charging bullshit fees.”

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23 points

This is the ‘regulation’ that conservatives bitch about so much.

It’s a good thing when government steps in to protect citizens from corporate greed.

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3 points

Exactly.

The modern conservative position “against excessive government regulation” is analogous to the historical argument that the civil war was over “states’ rights”.

Back then, it was only about states’ rights specifically as it related to a state’s right to legal slavery to prop up their exploitative economic system that perpetuated the wealth and prosperity of the elites at the expense of everyone else.

Now it’s only about “excessive regulation” against deceptive and manipulative business practices designed to prop up their exploitative economic system that perpetuates the wealth and prosperity of the elites at the expense of everyone else.

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50 points

Why isn’t the Internet seen as a utility, yet?

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9 points
2 points

That is a strong argument.

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7 points

Because this generation of Americans has been indoctrinated to believe all government owned businesses is a bad thing.

It’s better to funnel taxpayer money to private corporations that routinely fail to deliver quality products while the owners rake in the profits.

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5 points

And that government owned businesses have to be profitable. And even when they are (USPS) there are still calls for cutting costs…

Because surely spending another few hundreds of millions of taxpayer money on the army and “just one more lane” is far more effective.

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1 point

Yeah, everything except the military because it funnels money to corporations.

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3 points

Won’t ever be because we’re in the stage where everything is marketed as much as possible.it would take a massive cultural and political shift to change that.

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5 points

Nah. It will happen. It happened with electricity, the telegram and advanced education; it will happen to the internet.

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1 point

Yes. Just not for a very long time.

The cultural shift will occur, and future generations will be laughing at us for not having it sooner.

Like, why support paying private businesses taxpayer money? The same work still needs to get done, only now there’s a small group of owners profiting from the excess funds.

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32 points
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But charging it is easy enough?

In its dismissal of the broadband industry’s claims that itemizing fees would be too confusing for customers and too burdensome for providers

Sounds like there is a lot of shady shit in there that people will ask about if they had to list it.

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1 point

Good list of hidden junk fees Comcast charges, but they are far from being the only ones:

https://cordcuttersnews.com/comcast-has-12-different-hidden-fees-on-its-triple-play-packages/

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17 points
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Access to the internet shouldn’t be gatekept for profit.

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