Time Warner Nazi Fascist Bastards : Make 'em PAY for what was FREE

Just type in those two nasty words: "TIME WARNER." All across the country, you'll read raging forum complaints and angry newspaper articles about how horrible they are...not just a money-gouging monopoly, but always coming up with screw-schemes to rip off consumers or other corporations (like CBS recently).

Their customer support is atrocious. Calling up gives you an annoying mechanical voice walking you through several minutes of inane questions you have to say YES at, or NO at (not to mention a prompt to continue in Spanish in case your an ingrate Latino scum who refuses to speak English). If you finally get to a live person in tech support, after being blasted with idiotic "on-hold" music...it'll be some monkey who barely can mumble, and who has a script to offer simple (very) solutions. Like? "Pull the plug out, wait five seconds, and put it back in." Yeah? And while I'm doing that, take out your butt plug and see if you can let out some air and talk like a normal human!

Eventually your tech support idiot will tell you, from the script, "we're working on the problem," followed by "feel free to call us back tomorrow!

These contemptuous cocksuckers literally have one office in any city (mostly to collect cash from poor customers who stand in line once a month to pay up). NYC, with 8 million people, they have...only two offices! The wait time can be OVER TWO HOURS, worse than the Dept. of Motor Vehicles. The waiting area is crowded like some slum medical clinic, and the people dozing and standing around look like they've got every possible STD.

Television is not just an amusement. The news channels, at least some of the time, provide important information. If there's a disaster (such as 9/11) many don't know until the TV is interrupted for the news. But Time Warner and our lovely DIGITAL AGE, make everyone PAY for what actually was FREE.

At one time, Americans could switch on the TV, and through the air, get the basic stations, including ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS. Usually another dozen would turn up, including a variety of independent local channels. Now, thanks to Digital and hugely expensive HDTV sets, if you have an old TV, you have to PAY $100 just for a box that will convert the signal to analog so you can watch TV again and flag down an antenna signal. But in dense city locations, and desolate suburbs...you can't pick up a fucking antenna signal and have no choice but to be wired for cable.

So what was FREE is now something you have to PAY for?

What if you say FUCK IT...I'LL JUST HAVE THE INTERNET.

Ho ho ha ha hee hee.

You can get a newspaper website for your daily news, sure. You can find out what the weather is. But the TV networks aren't going to stream for you. CNN gives you bits and pieces of news articles. Jay Leno might give you yesterday's monologue but not the whole show. No...

The networks all make money with Time Warner, as the cable giant pays 'em per subscriber (they didn't feel like paying CBS what CBS thought they were worth...which led to a vicious blackout for weeks that fucked the consumer).

This means David Letterman, who publicly whined about Time Warner blacking out CBS, wasn't telling his boss Les Moonves, "Why not stream my show on the CBS website?" Nah. Can't do that. It might make Time Warner REALLY mad.

One day...ONE DAY...streaming technology and "convenience" (the fact that most now carry around cell phones and even want to watch TV shows on it) will mean that you'll be able to eventually see more content on competitive websites...or on pirate websites with illegal streaming.

Time Warner is prepared. They provide Internet service through their cables, and aggressively pitch it. Here's a bit of twisted corporate weaselry:

Yes, Time Warner doesn't give a damn if they lose "basic cable" subscribers. They've diversified enough that the people who hate them for their CABLE TV antics...have to pay them anyway for Internet service. And we know that cable is faster than a phone line.

Time Warner's lowest price on Internet access? You guessed it: $20.

Contemptuous Time Warner and their Nazi scum say "take it or leave it" to the chump change $20 a month basic cable folks. But pay 'em $60 a month for all the cable channels, and another $40 or $60 for a fast Internet connection, and somebody might actually come to your door and fix a problem for you.

Yes, fuck "Basic Cable" people...and let 'em pay to subscribe to Hulu, or wait for Netflix to stream TV shows for $8 a month...and watch the bills mount up.

But let's get back to the FREE TV removal.

Let's get back to basics. If you want "basic cable," which was once FREE, it's now $20 a month.

In many buildings, until digital came along, "basic cable" was free, mostly because Time Warner couldn't do anything about it. It was part of the basic wiring. They made money selling you the "cable box," which let you get another 20, 50 channels like ESPN sports and the Food Network. That would be $20 a month. Another $10 for HBO or Showtime.

Now? With digital technology, and a monopoly, and no politicians standing up for the public, there's no FREE TV anymore. Time Warner charges $20 a month just to let you see the old networks, CBS, NBC, CBS and PBS and whatever local channel is in your area! Want the Food Network and ESPN and the rest? $60 a month!

PS, Digital technology means they know exactly what channel you're watching at all times. Big Brother Time Warner.

PS, after waiting two hours to get your cable converter box (it's either that or go buy a HDTV for $300), after finding yet another precious outlet to plug the fucking thing in, and after hooking it up, and setting yet ANOTHER REMOTE CONTROL...you will get pixilated and tiled images, buzzy sound, and then this:

Welcome to Time Warner Outages which can last for days.