Wednesday, July 10, 2002

Make it easy for customers to give you money, Part 5 As I've occassionally posted, one of my cardinal rules of business - is make it easy for customers to give you money. It's astonishing how many companies don't pay attention to this rule. I saw the note about a recent Robin Williams concert coming up this Sunday and the new season of Sex and the City, which my wife enjoys, I decided to see about getting HBO. Well, I'd have to get one of the digital cable packages, since they don't offer it to analog cable customers anymore. Those start at $39.95. I currently pay $12, so I'm not likely to poney up another $28.00 just to get HBO. Sorry guys. You made it too hard to give you my money. 11:18:27 AM     That Damn Competition Quote of the year: "It's a miserable market but it's miserable because of the massive competition that's wrecking everything," From this article on how all the competition in the wirelss sector is preventing anyone from making any money. Market share and growth over profits. Folks have been more concerned with getting big fast, because they have these huge, very expensive networks of equipment that only make sense if they have large and fast growing customer bases against which to amortize those investments. As soon as the customer base growth slows -- as soon as pricing power disappears, the ability to make money completly evaporates and you're just trying to play musical chairs -- stay in the game until the weaker players fall out. It's a harrowing thrill ride to the death -- of hopefully everyone but you -- if you're int he business, and a tough one to be along for the ride on if you're an investor. One thing to know is that there will be an other side to this rollercoaster. Weaker players will fold (Voicestream and ATTWS are said to be in talks to merge), consolidation will happen. And people won't give up their cell phones. The busienss won't go away. Days of strong growth are likely behind us forever, though.     11:09:59 AM     Free Cable or the Right To Vote We had some friends -- who don't own a TV -- over last night to watch the All Star Game. The only TV that's watched in our house is zooboomafoo, zoom and crocodile hunter, so we're a little naive about the current state of commercial television. Sitting through the commercials was like being jackhammered. The volume, the intensity of the images, the rapidity of the editing made our heads swim. But this is what a good percentage of the American public spends a good percentage of their time watching. This is how they know their world. And I idly wondered, how many people, if asked to choose to between free cable tv and the right to vote, would make each choice? I'm not talking about access to cable, just whether or not they would have to pay for it. It's probabaly a $500/year issue for folks. Is that worth the right to vote? For those who choose the free cable, one could argue that we'd be getting some, um, interesting voters off the rolls. But that, of course, is BAD BAD thinking.... :) 10:55:49 AM     From Sex to Money Which one would you rather your president was lying to you about? Bush was elected on a promise to end the contradiction between presidential rhetoric and presidential rationalization. So far, all he’s done is change the subject from sex to money. From Slate.   10:50:03 AM

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