Comment by kodablah | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kodablah | Hacker News Reader

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> Rather than complain that customers don't read the fine print, how about removing throttling from the fine print and have companies advertise what they are selling?

That's the larger problem I alluded to. My point was about these important public services not doing some of the diligence many of us can. It's not about fine print or not, clearly what Verizon does is wrong, I'm just saying that these places need to put in a bit more research.

I think everyone here agrees that these companies shouldn't mislead, so just repeating that seems like obvious and meaningless discussion. I put "despite the overarching issues", "we can all [...] bemoan that [...] Verizon [...] have red tape", "I empathize", "fix the [...] wording as we'd like it to", "that needs fixing", "in the meantime", and "bigger problem [...] that's a different deal" all because it's clear what the larger problem is. My point is nuanced about public services and due diligence in these current annoying times, but clearly my attempts to avoid the obvious point didn't work.

I sorta disagree; if Verizon is dishonest and that catches someone off guard, it's not the fault of that party, it's Verizon's fault. Anything else is just victim blaming.

Sure. Admittedly, I don't really know how to "ask for victim vigilance in hostile environment" without appearing to blame them. The hostile environment is to blame, clearly.

Your argument would hold water if "victim vs perpetrator" were entirely black and white. Is Verizon not a partial victim for having an unreasonable customer that thinks $39/mo is sufficient for their mission critical communications bottleneck? Isn't Verizon partially a victim of politicians drumming up anger when the government itself contributed to the error by failing to read a contract?

You can't just assign the victim label and be done with your argument. There is nuance and shared responsibility.

Not everything is an exercise in identifying the victim, therefore the other is the perpetrator, therefore the 'victim' is absolved.

Is Verizon not a partial victim for having an unreasonable customer that thinks $39/mo is sufficient for their mission critical communications bottleneck?

I think this goes back to the "don't sell an unlimited plan if you're going to insist on limits". Verizon didn't have to call it an unlimited plan, they chose to.

> Verizon didn't have to call it an unlimited plan, they chose to

They could have just chosen not to compete in a market with unregulated definitions. You are improperly hating the player and not the game as though it's reasonable for them to not use definitions their competitors use when competing.

> They could have just chosen not to compete in a market with unregulated definitions.

I don't think it's about regulating words. If you promise to sell a blue dog but sell a green dog, I don't expect a regulation saying blue has to be blue.

It's just false advertisement.

Since VZN and ATT hire and fire all the people who write those regulations, hating them is hating the game.

> Is Verizon not a partial victim for having an unreasonable customer that thinks $39/mo is sufficient for their mission critical communications bottleneck?

Verizon's a victim, yes, but it's a self-inflicted problem caused by their misleading marketing so they don't deserve any pity. Verizon willfully tries to bury and downplay the limitations of their "unlimited" services, and it is entirely appropriate for them to bear the blame when people or local government agencies fall for it.

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