Like all New Yorkers, I’m beholden to a number of de facto monopolies that have all, ostensibly, come on hard times and need my money to survive. I’d only be all too happy to oblige except, y’know, for all the profits they’re posting.
First and foremost, of course, comes Time Warner Cable, second only to Cablevision in terms of practices one would expect from a Lex Luthor-style supervillain. They’ve been hurting of late: Those pesky millennials don’t get cable subscriptions – and CBS and HBO have decided to cut out the middle-man – so they have to get their pound of flesh somehow. Say hello to rental fees, subscription fees, and variable rates of service!
It used to be that the broadcast channels were free for anybody with rabbit ears, set-top boxes were included with the service, and internet was equivalent to most international rates: Around $15 a month. Now, broadcast channels cost $10, set-top boxes have their own fee – plus fees for installation and troubleshooting – and the cheapest internet costs more than $50 a month, not including a separate modem rental fee at more than $6 monthly. Furthermore, they’ve been harassing producers on the other end, with ultimatums to MSG, Disney and others leading to blackouts.
Like a toddler in the middle of a tantrum, they demanded their profits remain constant as their business model withered away, reminiscent of the RIAA’s lawsuit-happy way of defending a dying industry. It’s just as well, though; their cabal compatriots – and by that I mean their competitors – have had an even more egregiously deleterious model through the means of “retention specialists.” That title refers to people who are in the employ of the company for the express purpose of making it difficult to quit the company’s service. How dare you, after all? They have quarterly reports to think about!
I was recently given a thick letter by CitiBank, which is never good considering the last thick letter I’ve ever received was my acceptance to university. The letter included a manual of my “new account,” as they were phasing out the EZ Checking Account. Why? Because consumer banking isn’t as profitable as they were hoping – despite posting better than expected profits in April. Of course, they posted massive losses in June thanks to the $7 billion in fines they were made to pay by the US government for their hinky practices with mortgage securities, and they had been found to have been insufficiently buttressed against another 2008 mortgage crisis by the Federal Reserve in July, natch.
Add to that their being trounced in consumer banking by local players in the Korean and Japanese markets, and they had to find a way to shore up their profit margins somehow. Thankfully, they can simply decree that us locals pay more! Now, it costs $25 every month I have a balance under $10,000 and $2.50 every time I use an ATM not in a CitiBank branch – on top of the ATM’s own fees. I’m sure I can switch to Chase – with the most branches per capita in New York City – except Chase had to pay $13 billion in fines for their part in the 2008 financial and economic crisis and soon they will find a way to defray those costs themselves.
If that were not enough, there is still Consolidated Edison, which, true to their namesake, looks for every means to maximize profits. As part of the general deregulation of the energy industry, not a week goes by that a representative of an oil company from Texas or a solar company from New Jersey comes knocking on my door talking of lower initial rates that immediately become variable about three or four months in once I’ve forgotten what I signed up for – complete with fees to make it difficult to switch once the new rates apply, natch – which is just as well, because Con Ed themselves have decided to double my rates since this time last year.
If this all feels like a treadmill that slowly increases the incline, that’s because that’s exactly what it is. The term “nickel and dimed” is now obsolete: The decimal place has to be moved a couple spaces over to be updated properly. Barbara Ehrenreich was prescient in her analysis, but we’re accelerating if nothing else: All this works primarily as a tax on a poverty – if you exist in modern society, these are intractible costs, and the service providers know it. The only question is how much blood one can squeeze from a stone: How much internet can you steal? How long can the electricity bill go unpaid before you’re off the network (and subject to a whole new suite of fees?) And most importantly, can you even house your money without paying money?
To be a working person in this city is to set a foundation in quicksand. As our inequality increases, as it indeed becomes more expensive to be poor, surely something can – must – will be done.