I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, its a support/sales position to do everything within their bag of tricks to hold onto you as a subscriber. Some companies make it ridiculously convoluted to cancel.

Cable Television originally was a pay-for service that offered no commercials. That disappeared. I hope Hulu may keep an ad based version, with a commercial free subscription version. If not, then back to Arr be Pirate! :-(

I did not complain about devices (the Iphone). Rather, just data plans. Well, all their cellular plans in general. I do not own a single apple device, but that will not stop me from pointing out the obvious fact that there is an oligopoly. Back in 84? the telecom Bell was broken up. Over time many of those have merged basically recreating the monopoly of Bell, under the new name AT&T. The oligopoly controls around 90% of the market.

Dear SmallFurryCreature, In a capitalist society commodities are to be sold at lower prices due to competition. Although Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile may be 'competitors' they are rather an oligopoly. There is no true competition. In a capitalist society monopolies and oligopolies are usually the things people hate most. So yes, your right, they can charge whatever they want. If they were the only person to offer this service (data) because of a new technology, let them earn their money. But no, cellular data has been around for quite a while, and the oligopoly is just raking in the cash at every opportunity. Text messaging prices have INCREASED despite the fact that text messages cause NO effect on the network. So before you say 'this is the way things work in a socialist/capitalist market' consider the fact that its actually not a capitalist situation because there is no true competition. Regards, Rukie Dear AT&T, I hate you. Regards, Your Customer.

Gradeschool and Highschool for me always required a Librarian to scan the book and then input your name. However, our Librarians knew every student by first and last name. College for me has a photo identification card that needs to be shown (with a magnetic stripe) and the books are linked to whoever is on the photo (you must match the photo).

I dislike the idea of using fingerprints. The government should NOT maintain this information. I can fully understand someones approach to this and why they want to use this, but as this gains popularity, it will become far easier for the governments to say, Hey, lets have a universal id system using fingerprints. Oh, you'll need the fingerprint to check out books, identify yourself for guns, for paying at the gas station, for getting on the city bus, etc. Yes it can create a significant convenience for the consumer, but now the government can track your every move, every purchase. Today's kids are going to be used to handing over every bit of personal information, our government certainly isn't going to protect our rights at this point, we need to protect them ourselves. (How often is the government supposed to be overthrown? Every 200 years?) I realize this article is about a school, but it all starts somewhere, right?

I Live in the Henrietta area and I'm pissed off about this. Any suggestions on who to write letters to?

Contracts? What Contracts? I never signed anything with Sirius.

T.V. used to be free too, while cable was add free. Look what happened there.

I bought a cheap sirius radio about 3 years ago. After three years the unit burned out, and for no charge Sirius sent me a free radio. The problem Sirius has right now, is that they need a larger market. If it became "standard" that all cars had sirius, it would be great for them. Their monthly fee is 12.95, and I think that's cheaper than WoW. Internet Radio is NOT the market for sirius (but they do offer it). Sirius also offers business deals and campus deals. At the Rochester Institute of Technology, you can hear Sirius channels playing in the dining areas, in the gym, and in general all around campus. Since attending college I gave my parents the car unit, and picked up a second subscription and a stiletto. It can hold about 18 gig or so of music, has streaming internet access when your indoors (for music only), and streaming sattelite radio when your outdoors. So, it can compete with Slacker quite well. Many restaurants fail on the first attempt, are bought out, and become successful on the second buyout. I have a feeling the same will hold true for Sattelite radio.