Gas stations have also gotten unbearable. I loathe the screen that forces advertising content in front of me while I’m already paying for gas.
Is this a common practice? I don’t have any of those in the US
Yes, I’m surprised out haven’t seen it. The screen that takes card information will start playing some insufferable advertisement while the gas pumps.
For those who don’t know: one of the physical unlabeled buttons on the side of the screen always mutes it, so just push all of them if some kind stranger hasn’t marked it for you.
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Unfortunately the mute button has ceased to exist much of the time
They are all over California.
I’ve seen one in the US, but it was in a small town with only one has station. No need to treat your customers nice if there is no competition, haha
I’ve been seeing it for decades, I first remember bitching about it in like 2004 I think…
Oh yeah this has started happening here in central Illinois and I fucking hate it.
National ISPs like Spectrum/Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and Comcast/Xfinity have an oligopoly. They have divided up America into their own markets and purposely avoid entering each other’s markets to avoid competing with each other. With no competition, they are free to charge as much as possible, avoid providing good support, and can provide suboptimal service (ie, low and asymmetric download/upload speeds, terrible latency). [1] The problem worsens if you live in suburban or rural areas. Of course there are exceptions where coverage overlaps due to sharing infra, but that is rare and possibly priced in.
Those same ISPs compleatly ignored rural areas. 10 years ago I could only get internet through Dish network ( the worst ISP) today thanks to the government helping small ISPs I can choose from 2 companies offering high speed fiber.
Right now I’m on 200 up/down for $70.
I have the small town ISP also, it’s great. I get 100Mb symmetrical fiber for $50/mo with no contract and no data caps. Very reliable, almost never goes down.
It’s worse than collusion. The break up of AT&T resulted in a legal construction of Franchise Agreements that legally granted regional monopolies in all major population centers in the country in a deliberate bid to avoid Sherman antitrust rules. It’s not merely collusion, you literally cannot compete by law.
Not sure why people would hate gas stations, I hate the gas companies setting the insane prices, but the stations themselves are often just local businesses.
ISPs on the other hand are like abusive partners, they do an awful job until you say you’re going to leave. Then they start begging you to stay and promising to get better. Then they’re good for about a week before starting to completely screw you again.
Yeah, I don’t hate gas stations at all, but fuck ISPs: Greedy fucking thieves.
I hate gas stations because of the smell. That’s not the fault of the business, just an inevitable thing that I do hate.
Thankfully, I never need to go to gas stations anymore so it doesn’t really matter.
That said, ISPs are infinitely worse than gas stations.
Nah, I just absolutely hate my ISP. But also loath gas stations whose pumps do advertising you can’t turn off.
Don’t use those pumps
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Drive out of town to get gas
Having moved to Oregon from a state where I could pump my own gas, nothing could annoy me more than the gas station.
Well, good news on that front, the house and senate passed a bill to let us pump our own. As long as Kotek signs it, it would go into effect immediately.
Not pumping your own gas sounds weird as hell. I didn’t even know that was still a thing.
Us and New Jersey I think are the only two now.
Having moved to jersey from a state where I could pump my own gas, the worst part about it is when it’s 2am, there’s an emergency and you’re rushing to the hospital, only to notice you need gas, only to realize that the only station within 20 miles doesn’t have anyone working that late, and while the pumps are there and functional, they’re turned off so you’re stuck there.
But above all that, Fuck comcast.
Gas stations:
- tell me the actual price up front
- can provide enough product for local traffic
- have a real person available to help, standing right there
- give me the opportunity to shop around on price, brand preference, favorite color plug things.
My ISP:
- 10ish mbps when we feel like it
- itll probablly be less than $100, probably
- take it or leave it bub, or gtfo
Don’t forget the random charges for a few bucks that they stick on all the time banking on people not bothering to call and bitch about it because an hour on the phone isn’t worth it for ~$5.
I hate ISP way more than any gas station. In fact I don’t hate gas stations at all. Weird.
Above gas stations? About the only thing that annoys me about them is half the stuff not having a price listed. I guess I’d hate them more if they kept jacking up prices the longer I was a customer. 🤨
who… what?
I’ve never heard any one really complain about gas stations. is the questioned and response worded poorly? I think people hate paying high prices for gas but I’ve never heard any one say they hate gas stations before.
ISP’s tho, every one can agree that they can go gargle an entire warehouses of unwashed dicks
I don’t hate either of them. I have 2 good ISPs in my small town, and they offer good + reliable service for a reasonable price, without data caps. I’m very lucky to have these choices, I know from past experiences.
I do hate bullshit ISPs like AT&T though. I formerly lived in a house where they were the only ISP option and the service was terrible, slow, and vastly overpriced. Also unreliable.
These local ISPs are great though. I hope more small towns get their own small ISPs like we have.
I wish non-evil convenience stores existed because nothing’s better than the gas station when you’re stoned to the bone
I wish non-evil anything existed. Unfortunately, the world is set up so that only the evil truly succeed.
Food Co-ops are the closest thing I think, or farmer’s markets but those aren’t particularly convenient
Also, the trees that freely offer blackberries in a public park near me.
This is a really strange comparison.
People hate gas stations? Wtf
Like the US ones where you have to pay in advance, I can see…
Paying in advance is pretty outdated. Cards are much more common.
I don’t hate gas stations, but I do hate people who don’t know how to pull up to a fucking gas pump without completely cocking it up for everyone else!
I switched to Sam’s from Costco. The biggest issue is after the very orderly gas line at Costco, Sam’s is the wild West.
Watching some woman lose her mind at Costco because the attendant refused to let her drive the wrong way through the pumps and made her go get in line properly while I was pumping my gas was so wonderful.
Hey now, how else am I supposed to let everyone know I hate them? Legally?
I hate Comcast so much
At least I can sort of choose gas stations. I have no choice in (non-wireless) ISPs.
But don’t you love paying twice as much for half the average speed that people in other cou tries are getting?
