Does it seem like you frequently purchase a product and the cost goes up, but the value goes down? Cereal boxes and chocolate bars have been shrinking for years. Manufacturers figure out new ways to squeeze the buck from the juice, and the consumer keeps getting hit in the wallet.
The double whammy is when the size goes down AND the price rises, which may happen subtly, but certainly has done so at a regular pace the past 20-30 years. Go back to the food examples, and you know what I mean. A chocolate bar the size of my hand was 5 cents when I grew up. Today, the typical chocolate bar is as thin as a sheet of paper and maybe five inches long, if you’re lucky. Have fun downing that and not wanting two more immediately afterwards.
This change is not limited to food. A friend of mine recently went into her local phone provider (PP for short and to keep this safely generic) store. She wanted to downgrade from her current smartphone data plan, and get a new phone.
When the sales rep quoted her the new fee, it was $30 higher than what she is currently paying. “But I’m downgrading,” she told the guy, “how can the cost go up?”
PPs are charging you to do business with them. We all have options to go to another company. But, I imagine most of us believe we’ll get jobbed regardless of where we move, so we argue back and forth with our current PP, hoping the sap we are dealing with sees the logic of our points, and feebleness of his company’s approach.
It, of course, didn’t turn out that way for my friend, nor does it turn out that way for the rest of us. Being downsized on service and upsized on price leads to a lot of the resentment, estrangement, anger and displacement we feel in the world today. We cannot influence the behemoth in front of us, so we rage, then pay.
The irony in this situation was that my friend wanted her new phone plan not to include the Internet. She did not want the smartphone, just the ability to make phone calls and text. She has an iPad and laptop and can get to them regularly and conveniently, so as she puts it, “Why do I need to respond to emails while I’m on the run?” Indeed.
She makes a great point. We don’t need all this stuff. She wanted to get away from some of it, and she still couldn’t win. Suffering succotash.
PP fees are out of hand. It is as if they think you are privileged to be doing business with them, rather than being treated as someone who is valued. Then you get charged for something simple, like to renew your contract, as my friend experienced.
“They looked at me like I was nuts,” she said, relaying the rep’s response to her challenges. “They offered me a free class. What am I going to do with a free class? So what? I didn’t need the class.”
“If I thought longer about it, I wouldn’t have renewed. I would have gone to Wal-Mart and gotten a disposable phone.”
“PP fees are ridiculous.” I couldn’t agree more.
PPs are into your pocket for the phone data plan, Internet, texting, perhaps even cable and long distance through your home phone. They have a direct line to your bank account and it’s almost as if they are just drawing blood from your vein.
My friend had it right. Ditch the phone and get a disposable. Now we just have to execute on that plan.
The double whammy is when the size goes down AND the price rises, which may happen subtly, but certainly has done so at a regular pace the past 20-30 years. Go back to the food examples, and you know what I mean. A chocolate bar the size of my hand was 5 cents when I grew up. Today, the typical chocolate bar is as thin as a sheet of paper and maybe five inches long, if you’re lucky. Have fun downing that and not wanting two more immediately afterwards.
This change is not limited to food. A friend of mine recently went into her local phone provider (PP for short and to keep this safely generic) store. She wanted to downgrade from her current smartphone data plan, and get a new phone.
When the sales rep quoted her the new fee, it was $30 higher than what she is currently paying. “But I’m downgrading,” she told the guy, “how can the cost go up?”
PPs are charging you to do business with them. We all have options to go to another company. But, I imagine most of us believe we’ll get jobbed regardless of where we move, so we argue back and forth with our current PP, hoping the sap we are dealing with sees the logic of our points, and feebleness of his company’s approach.
It, of course, didn’t turn out that way for my friend, nor does it turn out that way for the rest of us. Being downsized on service and upsized on price leads to a lot of the resentment, estrangement, anger and displacement we feel in the world today. We cannot influence the behemoth in front of us, so we rage, then pay.
The irony in this situation was that my friend wanted her new phone plan not to include the Internet. She did not want the smartphone, just the ability to make phone calls and text. She has an iPad and laptop and can get to them regularly and conveniently, so as she puts it, “Why do I need to respond to emails while I’m on the run?” Indeed.
She makes a great point. We don’t need all this stuff. She wanted to get away from some of it, and she still couldn’t win. Suffering succotash.
PP fees are out of hand. It is as if they think you are privileged to be doing business with them, rather than being treated as someone who is valued. Then you get charged for something simple, like to renew your contract, as my friend experienced.
“They looked at me like I was nuts,” she said, relaying the rep’s response to her challenges. “They offered me a free class. What am I going to do with a free class? So what? I didn’t need the class.”
“If I thought longer about it, I wouldn’t have renewed. I would have gone to Wal-Mart and gotten a disposable phone.”
“PP fees are ridiculous.” I couldn’t agree more.
PPs are into your pocket for the phone data plan, Internet, texting, perhaps even cable and long distance through your home phone. They have a direct line to your bank account and it’s almost as if they are just drawing blood from your vein.
My friend had it right. Ditch the phone and get a disposable. Now we just have to execute on that plan.