[cyberax]

Oh yeah. I feel sooooo good dealing with Comcast. At this point in life, I spent more time on the phone with Comcast support than I ever spent time in various DMV offices.

> A company must maintain profitability to stay alive.

Yeah. And once it becomes a monopoly (like Comcast), it can just keep raising prices.

[cucumber3732842]

Have you ever called the DMV? In my state it's worse than Comcast. 45min wait time when the lines open in the morning, only increasing from there.

I "owe" Comcast $200. They say I didn't cancel at an old apartment. I say I did. I have the email. They insist. They've sent me a letter once a year for a decade. About 2yr in it went to collections. They're still trying.

Imagine the consequences if I did that with government.

Say nothing of the fact that if I tried to pay it, Comcast would be able to take my money no problem. The government would take a check, ACH or charge me $5 to use a buggy 3rd party CC processing service.

[cyberax]

Well, ask your state to fix the issue. Perhaps elect better politicians? The states where I lived all have online booking.

And their websites are well-designed and functional. There are customer support emails and phone numbers.

> Say nothing of the fact that if I tried to pay it, Comcast would be able to take my money no problem.

About that... A couple of years ago I got locked out of AT&T because I forgot to update my credit card. And I couldn't log in because it required a (you guessed it) one-time SMS password. Their "pay your bill" needed a bill number, for which I needed to log into their website.

Their fix? Visit the store.

> Imagine the consequences if I did that with government.

A couple of years ago I accidentally overpaid the IRS (I paid the capital gains tax twice, as it was already deducted during the sale by the broker) to the tune of $10k. A year later, they sent a letter asking me for clarifications. I called them, and they sent me a refund check.

> The government would take a check, ACH or charge me $5 to use a buggy 3rd party CC processing service.

And what's wrong with a check or ACH?

[wredcoll]

I have called the dmv. They said enter a number and we'll call you back later, which they did. It wasn't fast but it was fairly efficient.

I've had the irs write me a letter saying I owed them money. They were correct and I paid them in a couple of months. It wasn't very hard.

I don't enjoy paying taxes but I do very much enjoy the things they buy.

[alistairSH]

I have! I made an 8am appt (that’s when they open). They let me in the door at 7:58. I was back in my car driving home by 8:12.

[cucumber3732842]

And I have gone to rural DMVs and they were nice and helpful and polite. Absolutely not what most people experience just due to where population is located and how the more urban DMVs tend to be.

Listen, I'm sure if all you do is straight down the middle of whatever the DMV thinks a median peasant does, then I'm sure it works fine.

But on that same note, if all you do is sign up and then just keep paying them money forever, Comcast works fine too.

Neither of these organizations works worth a shit outside the default path. But only one of them will threaten to really screw up your life over it.

[WalterBright]

Comcast has a monopoly granted to it by the government.

[cyberax]

Not here. It's a natural monopoly, just like sewer lines or electric transmission.

Where I live now, I paid $50k to get a private fiber optics line just not to deal with Comcast anymore. There were no other options. We _might_ get AT&T fiber, eventually.

[WalterBright]

Municipalities normally grant local cable monopolies.

But today there are other options. Starlink, for one.

[cyberax]

It has not been a monopoly here for the last 2 decades (at least). There also was Wave Broadband nearby they serve some high-rise buildings, I got a private business-class line from them.

But it was not profitable for them to expand normally. They can't offer drastically cheaper service than Comcast, the installation costs in cities are huge. I also have Starlink as a backup, and it's even slower than Comcast.

So yeah, government actually works better than commercial companies for most infrastructural needs. And in particular, municipal broadband is usually head-and-shoulders better than anything from large commercial companies. It has higher consumer satisfaction ratings and is cheaper on average.