You've Got No Mail!

Shuffle:

[When] Comcast announced last year it was taking over the Time Warner cable franchise in Houston, its broadband Internet customers started to get nervous. A change of Internet providers usually means a change of e-mail addresses, which means having to alert anyone who has the old address that it's changing.

Sure enough, Comcast has confirmed that the houston.rr.com e-mail domain will go away by the end of this year, in a process that will begin in July. All Houston Road Runner subscribers will be given comcast.net e-mail addresses.

This sort of crap may eventually result in a "national e-mail address" law, similar to the law that makes a cell phone number the property of the user, not the service provider. Because businesses can't seem to use common sense and respect in dealing with their customers -- and because the high-speed cable business is effectively a monopoly in most areas; "competition" from DSL is a bad joke at best -- government will have to step in and set the standard.

Playing musical addresses every time a merger or take-over happens is as ridiculous as your apartment address changing every time a new property management company buys the complex. It's also one of the primary reasons I don't even bother with my home e-mail address; I use webmail and work e-mail. Sure, Google or Yahoo may be bought out, but they're a lot less likely to pointlessly change storefronts and e-mail addresses than a cable provider.

Name recognition and comfortable familiarty are far more important factors in customer relations than the ego-boost of having your company logo plastered on everything. The greedy mouth-breathers who run Comcast, alas, seem immune to such intelligence -- and their current monopoly supports their so-called business model. Bring on the broadband-over-powerline, please!

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(Hat-tip to Mrs. Jar(egg)head)