Sunday, December 03, 2006

A Broken Business Model

About a month or two ago, I finally got a new cell phone. To start off this blog post, I have to get up on my soapbox and spout venom at the cell phone providers. Why the hell do you sell phones that barely can make it a year and then require that a person sign a 2 year agreement? It blows my mind. Before I got the new phone, my other Motorola was falling apart...terrible battery life, bad reception, dropped calls....most people can understand the frustration I'm vocalizing. I did all this research to find a highly rated phone, but of course, the highly rated phones are the ones that are not on sale. It was either the choice of a lower priced Razr, or a $350 Samsung that had high ratings. With a new child, I broke down and got the Razr with my $100 towards a new phone. I can't complain too much about the functionality about the Razr...most anyone will admit that the phone is cool to look at..and it is nice to throw it in your pocket. Though the phone is nice to look at, Verizon has decided to totally screw up the phone by putting on its own operating system..this whole V-Cast bullshit. Verizon has locked down the phone to where if you want to do anything cool, then you have to buy the extras..at outrageous prices..at least in my mind. I was hoping that I could upload some of my own mp3's, but Verizon tells me to bend over. In order to upload or play any mp3 on your phone, you have to buy a song from their library...for like $3 a song....give me a freaking break, I can go out to Best Buy or Target and buy the whole freaking album for the cost of 3 songs. Do I look like an idiot? I just don't see the legitmicy of this business model. I guess people are crazy enough to buy individual songs for that amount, but don't people realize that you can go to Apple and get the song for 99 cents? I guess young people are more ignorant that I thought. I also don't understand why Verizon locks down the phone so that I can't do anything fun. Didn't I buy the phone from you bastards (I'm starting to think that I'm renting it), don't I pay you 60-70 bucks a month for this service? Oh well, I guess that I'm just frustrated, and maybe I really am getting older. I just would hope that Verizon would re-think their business strategy...heck, I'm starting to see Cingulair commercials where they advertise that you can upload your songs for nothing...and you don't have to purchase the songs from them. Oh well, it's not like my opinion really counts.

Currently listening to:
The Long Blondes
Someone to Drive You Home
Released on: 11-6-06

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

go to the verizon store, piss on their rug, and change providers. it's gonna take enough people getting pissed about shitty service to make them change their evil ways. on phone durability: i'm sold on the nokia 6235i. i've had mine for about a year and it works as well as day 1. Compact and durable. It does lack Bluetooth, but I can live without it.