Did you ever notice that there are some things that you end up paying just because it's too inconvenient to resolve the issue? I've got two of those things right now.
Let's start with Comcast. They signed me up for some deal that included certain free channels the first six months, and now that the deal has expired, the total cost went up $20. The truth is, if you could get Bravo, Food Network and Sprout shows online somewhere (legally and conveniently, as with Hulu), I'd drop the TV service entirely. It's not worth it. But I don't do anything about it because it means getting on the phone and having to deal with some schmuck who is going to fight me on it. That sucks.
Then there's Chase. I have my consumer and business accounts with them, and for the most part, the bank is irrelevant. But my business account, which doesn't do anything different than the consumer account, has a monthly fee. Customer service hours suck, and I just can't find the time to call them. That's lame. I also tried to get them to set up a merchant account, because they have better rates, but they won't do anything unless it's over the phone.
Yeah, the problem has become that communicating by phone just isn't convenient. It's a funny cultural contradiction, because there seems to be a great desire to have everything occur in real time, yet everyone wants to time shift things to convenient times, which is not what the phone does.
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