Dealing with corporations

I feel your pain, buddy. It really sucks.

What’s written above ^^^^^^^^^^^ is the main reason the only cell service I would ever use is Straight Talk, which uses both AT&T & Verizon networks....can’t be beat! Almost going on 5 years now without an issue👍👍👍.

When on my iPad I use VoIP software and can call or text unlimited for free anywhere in North America.

Boy..I could get kicked out of here on this one..Let me just that in my opinion most large corporations use slick ads to try to hide the fact that they are consumed with greed.

Same here our AT&T bill is just a wee bit south of 300

I heard, from an American friend last week, that cell phone bills are quite big in USA. I've 2 contacts, one is sim only at £10pm and the other is for s9+ at £37pm. For that I get 2000 mins calls (of which I use about 30 mins), unlimited texts, but only 6GB of data (of which I only use about 2GB).

Does me grand. That's using the big corporation of Tesco.

Iy most certainly is a bunch of money going out and when you consider 40 years ago we had to wait til we got home to answer a beeper.

For the difference in price for satellite internet, I might as well keep my phone and use it for a hot spot. I dont get charged overages and IF I do hit 32gbs between the 3 phones it gets slowed down to snail speed.

I wish we could revert back to beepers. At least I could choose who to call back or say "i didnt get it." Actually, it would be nice to have conversations with people. Not text and talk over the phone.

If it was possible, I'd switch all of my "services" to small companies. And then tell all the big ones to suck am egg.

It's my humble opinion that there are many folks running these big corporations that are all aware that their time is coming to an end.

As I may have mentioned here in previous posts, I am a pretty avid reader... On a pretty wide variety of topics, energy, technology, etc...

In a nutshell, whether most people realize it or not, we are living in extraordinary times. The convergence of many technologies are essentially leading to a point that will absolutely change the way we all live. The savvy folks that are in the thick of this are all saying that many of the major industries, that are prevalent in most of our lives, will be radically changed or disappear all together.

The automotive industry will soon be turned on it's head. Despite what the naysayers are espousing, the electric revolution is gaining tremendous momentum and will completely upend our current paradigm. Within the next 6 to 10 years we will see new cars that have 300+ mile ranges, charge in 15 minutes and will cost less than $20,000! And this will be for a new car!

This, in and of itself, will strand billions if not trillions of dollars of assets in such industries as the petroleum and mechanical manufacturing industries.

Solar panels, first invented in the 1800's were less than 1% efficient. Today many manufacturers are creating panels that are upwards of 30%, and they are improving yearly. Researchers have been able to get that to 45% in the lab. Since 1970 the costs of solar cells has dropped by over 99%

Electric storage, Lithium Ion Batteries, has been dropping in price by 10% to 12% per year for the last 2 decades and by over 16% per year for the last 2 or 3 years.  Once Tesla's Giga Factory is complete, along with the other 5 or 6 similar factories being built by other manufacturers, the price will drop even more.

What this all means for you and me is that inside of 5 or 10 years we will be able to have solar panels on our house, batteries in our garage that store the excess productions that will carry us through the night or for days of limited sunlight.

Pair this up with electric cars that cost 90% less per mile to drive vs internal combustion cars, and that are 1/2 to 2/3 less money to maintain (20 moving parts vs 2000).

Cable and dish tv will most likely be a thing of the past as well. Internet bandwidth and speeds are increasing exponentially and allow many, including my family and I, to cut the cord completely on these "conventional" methods of watching tv. We stream everything in our house via Roku boxes (much like Apple TV or Firestick) and have been doing so for over 5 years. This has meant a $200+ per month savings for us.

Based off of what I've gleaned, over the last decade or so, we are rapidly approaching a time in which our houses will produce their own power and even charge our cars! No more electric bills. No more heating oil bills. No more cable bills. No more gasoline bills.

So, don't get me wrong. I am in no way trying to defend what the big corporations are doing, but I do understand their motives and the fact that they are all running scared. If they aren't, they will soon be extinct.

Just my $0.02.

YMMV

After today I’m sure once again I’ll be dealing with Medicare, as well as my doctors office!!!

Gents, you can get everything you want on youtube streaming for pennies of what DTV charges. NFL, sports and movies. It's out there if you look.

We had a similar issue with Amazon, only after we cancelled they kept charging the monthly fee, as well as the annual fee. We called, it’s supposedly straightened out and they’re refunding our money. Guess who billed me the following month. . . Apparently these are not limited instances. I try to mainly use Walmart now.

Well, 2 of my doctors want another 3-D MRI and in less then 24 hours Medicare once again turned the procedure down. Their doctors suggest a Cat-Scan first, which in my case will not show the proper images my doctors need to see accurately. Now it will cost Medicare twice the price because when I show up at the ER and my doctors need the imaging from a 3-D MRI no prior approval is required. It’s a game I’m use to playing by now and is absolutely ridiculous!

Mark, instead of Medicare shelling out roughly $600.00 for the 3-D MRI at my local radiology group it will end up costing Medicare over $2,500 because I’ll be admitted into the hospital for 12 hours. Indeed there is something wrong with our medical system in our great Nation.

I lived on antenna TV and radio for over twenty years before relocating but, damn, I love whole house WiFi and it doesn't cost anymore than hot spotting 25 gigs/month which had to be rationed to keep from getting cut down to dial up speed on overage. 

I still watch my free TV stations and listen to the radio most of the time out of habit but it'll be pretty cool to get college football and basketball live on TV this year.