The "win in full as normal" guarantee is the weakness. What happens when the producer cannot meet the guarantee for lack of funds due to faulty or too-aggressive algorithmic chump choices?
However, given that hobbyist full-disclosure crypto ponzi schemes are a thing, probably the market has an appetite for anything.
Where does it say that? I read the page and skimmed the "Important Plan Info" page, and couldn't find anything that restricted it to personal use.
For the $40 plan, the page says "For people who want unlimited, and no worries", and if I were buying a plan for fire command center, that's exactly what I'd want -- unlimited and no worries.
Though since none of the pricing they mentioned in the article matches what's on this page, it's likely that they did have some business plan.
Your argument would hold water if "victim vs perpetrator" were entirely black and white. Is Verizon not a partial victim for having an unreasonable customer that thinks $39/mo is sufficient for their mission critical communications bottleneck? Isn't Verizon partially a victim of politicians drumming up anger when the government itself contributed to the error by failing to read a contract?
You can't just assign the victim label and be done with your argument. There is nuance and shared responsibility.
Not everything is an exercise in identifying the victim, therefore the other is the perpetrator, therefore the 'victim' is absolved.
Is Verizon not a partial victim for having an unreasonable customer that thinks $39/mo is sufficient for their mission critical communications bottleneck?
I think this goes back to the "don't sell an unlimited plan if you're going to insist on limits". Verizon didn't have to call it an unlimited plan, they chose to.
> Verizon didn't have to call it an unlimited plan, they chose to
They could have just chosen not to compete in a market with unregulated definitions. You are improperly hating the player and not the game as though it's reasonable for them to not use definitions their competitors use when competing.
> They could have just chosen not to compete in a market with unregulated definitions.
I don't think it's about regulating words. If you promise to sell a blue dog but sell a green dog, I don't expect a regulation saying blue has to be blue.
> Is Verizon not a partial victim for having an unreasonable customer that thinks $39/mo is sufficient for their mission critical communications bottleneck?
Verizon's a victim, yes, but it's a self-inflicted problem caused by their misleading marketing so they don't deserve any pity. Verizon willfully tries to bury and downplay the limitations of their "unlimited" services, and it is entirely appropriate for them to bear the blame when people or local government agencies fall for it.
Verizon already pays for these services through taxes, and the government is not liable for damage to Verizon's property resulting from a wildfire, so why would extra money change hands upon such damage?
Your comment is glib and cute, but it really is a baseless fantasy when confronted with facts.
Well, so too does the FD. But they didn't get it. Even Verizon's language says, "During times of congestion, your traffic may be slowed (but only after 22GB in a month)".
And yet their traffic was slowed to 30kbps (which, lets face it, isn't slowed, but effectively halted), permanently. Unless Verizon wants to claim that their best of breed, "least congested" network (their words) was congested at 2am, 4am, etc...
The situation with Verizon is more like a case of an EMT asking a bystander to get out of the way, which the bystander absolutely has an obligation to comply with. But it's complicated by the fact that Verizon isn't just a bystander but a company that had an existing contract with the fire department, and had previously been informed that their throttling was causing problems.
There is context to that promise of "unlimited". The government bought one cheap consumer-oriented cellular internet plan for their mission critical emergency communications. There is a bit of mismatch on the intended purpose of the offer. I'm sure you'll even find a disclaimer of liability and disclaimer of suitability/warranty in the contract. The government f'ed up, no way around it.
And I'd wager heavily that the government employees/contractors had ample budget to read the contract.
Nope, this isn't a plan offered to consumers, both AT&T and Verizon actually offer the $37.99 unlimited data device plan to any government organization or charity in a state that participates in the Western State Contracting Alliance.
Part of what WSCA contracts for is better service, which was obviously not provided here. The Verizon Rep did jack when confronted with a critical issue, he could have easily done either of the plan changes suggested and applied a credit for the difference. But, on Verizon only their employees are allowed to work on WSCA contracted accounts, ensuring they perpetually get the worst customer support. No other carrier does this!
Does the fact that the government seems to have done nearly no due diligence regarding capacity planning play a factor in your criticism of Verizon? They relied on one emergency device with one communication link and thought $39/mo was sufficient apparently. That's silly and incompetent for any IT professional.
The article makes it seem like Verizon told them it would not be throttled.
"We made a mistake in how we communicated with our customer about the terms of its plan"
It was $37.99 a month, and its the standard unlimited data device plan under the Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA). Up until recently, it was truly unlimited, but Verizon has decided to start throttling it without renegotiating their multi-state contract.
It is not Verizon's problem if the government signed up for the wrong sized plan. It is not Verizon's problem if the government did not shop around for the best deal.
It is Verizon's problem if the case can be made that $8/GB is gouging. However $10/GB is a very common price among contractless carriers such as Tracfone and Google, so $8/GBis certainly in the ballpark.
Does not offering a bulk discount equate to gouging? IDK.
Verizon was likely mot meeting the terms of their contract under the Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA), they likely statement messaged these government customers back in 2016 saying "we're changing the terms" without renegotiating the contract as they were supposed to. This $37.99 unlimited plan is offered by both AT&T and Verizon under the WSCA contract, only Verizon chooses to throttle this plan...
However, given that hobbyist full-disclosure crypto ponzi schemes are a thing, probably the market has an appetite for anything.