No, I'm not talking about the boardgame. Instead I'm talking about how difficult it must be for the marketing department of a monopoly when the executives use their position to squash competition. Then your job becomes one of damage control. Especially when we're talking about the Internet.
While the Internet embodies the best practices of a free market, access to the Internet brings out the worst excesses of monopolies.
Let me explain. The big Internet providers are working on ways to throttle back bandwidth for access to create an Internet society of haves and have nots. Sad but true. Doc also wrote about it here. Here in Utah we have a project coming online which delivers 15mb upstream and downstream for about $40/month. Soon those speeds will be available in 50 and 100mbps. Qwest is our monopoly here. So rather than compete with the new system, they spent tons of money fighting it in the legislature. When that didn't work, they filed lawsuits.
If you believe markets are conversations, just what kind of value do you think they place on their customers? And this after several Qwest former executives have been charged for financial fraud by the SEC.
So Qwest has been running a ton of ads on TV talking about what great people they are and their pride in service. Damage control is not marketing.
And so it goes. We now live in a country where our government's first response to a crisis or natural disaster is...PR control. Let's keep fighting the good fight and do our best.
Posted by: Mary Schmidt | 16 February 2006 at 07:13 PM
I totally agree. It shows how ethics have completely died in corporate america forget doing what is legal. Our financial system is on the brink of collapse due to unethical behaviour on account of the banking CEOs driven by greed.
Posted by: Monopoly | 23 January 2009 at 06:39 AM