shanen's Journal: Cancerous corporations (like Docomo) worship the gawd of profit!

Using Docomo as a poster child for corporate EVIL, but this is also kind of a review of David Rothkopf's book titled Power, Inc. One of the most thought-provoking books I've read in a while (and I've already finished 139 this year).

Capsule summary: The old battle between church and state has become a battle between corporations and nations, but it's still a religious struggle of sorts. The new gawd is profit and the worshipers are soulless corporations. The bulk of the (donating) believers used to be peasant farmers, many of whom where treated as chattel bound to their farms, but now they're (heavily taxed and underpaid) corporate employees who are treated as wage slaves. The less things change the more they stay the same, eh?

Disclaimer time: I better clarify that Docomo is now the largest chunk of NTT, the Japanese phone company, and NTT and I have a LONG and highly negative history. I don't think it's my fault because THEY are setting the rules. For example, one of the old rules was that I had to pay 72,000 yen to get a phone line. This was mostly supposed to pay for construction costs, but all of those construction costs had been paid LONG before I ever arrived on the scene. They actually dropped that rule a few years later, but I never saw that 72,000 yen again. Their most annoying rules these days involve data limits for LTE networks. In a less greedy, less profit-maximizing world, the last mile should mostly be wireless, but NTT needs help from Docomo to basically force victims... Er, I mean encourage customers to buy more fiber connections, so the data limits remain in place. Not sure if that part should be described as a disclaimer, but I don't want to pretend there is any love lost between me and Docomo.

Current problem: Sick and unsafe battery in a Samsung Galaxy phone. There are certain rules that might allow me to get a free battery, but first I would have to play a different game and be abused by the data limits, too, so I haven't gone the easy route for maximizing Docomo's profits. What I have is an old phone and an old battery. The phone might die at any time, so it's hard to justify the major purchase of a fresh battery. The battery is swollen, but it holds enough of a charge for my needs, though the swollen condition is supposed to be potentially unsafe. Docomo and Samsung have convinced me they don't care about the safety, so I'm just going to limp along for now.

If I do get killed by the battery, then at least I can hope my wife will get to sue the pants off Docomo. If I'm just injured, then I myself may get the pleasure of suing, eh? Hopefully the battery will just keep limping along until the phone dies, but the longer I wait, the nicer the new phone model that will replace it.

Meanwhile, I'm sometimes visiting new Docomo shops to check the battery. Another one of their peculiar rules is that the shops are sort of independent, so they offer different prices, even on the replacement batteries. Maybe I'll luck into finding a shop that is willing to sell me the replacement battery at a really low price, eh? Then I could just laugh it off if the phone dies the next month.