An email to the VZW CEO

[pc747]

You have the right spirit because we need to come together but if all we do is make a big noise and still buy motorola then we are blowing hot air. You have to be willing to make that decision with your wallet as well. CEOs see money and when stockholder are concerned they get fired. Do we have enough people to make them go back into bankruptcy, no. But we have enough voices and strength to make them an average phone and change another companies bottom line. The way its shaping out is if you want too mod then buy a google experience device or a nexus because it guarantees you that freedom. Other devices are designed to protect the company from average users who damage their device by hacking.

 

[a44kaliburll]

Verizon notices that we dont look at our contract..and yes we do deserve to be taken to the cleaners...I think that the vast majority of Verizon customers are uninformed joe public. Those people will willingly pay out of their hats for a phone and not look at their contracts.

OK. I read my contract. Now what? Every carrier has the same stuff in their contract. So, my choice is $200 or $700.

Let's all buy Ferraris. They are better cars than Ford and Honda. We should make a statement to Ford and Honda to make their cars better by not buying them anymore.

wait...is that a question or a statement?

if its a question...I think what the OP did in his email was the first step...the second step would be to threaten cease of business...after that step its go back to verizon with my terms...then barter like you would with any market...("in the past you gave me 2 chickens for a dollar...now I want 2 chickens and 3 eggs..." "no but I can give you 2 chickens and 2 eggs for a dollar and 15 cents..")

its all in phases man...Start small end big..

 

[armedmonkey]

I'm not sure what you're asking me about (question or statement)

I'm sorry to say you have a very naive way of seeing this. It seems to me like the underpants gnomes:

step 1. steal underpants
step 2. ....
step 3. profit

You can't threaten them cease of business. it would be impractical. Who are you saying we threaten? VZW or motorola?

I'm on contract for another year and a half. I'm not going to cancel that and move to a different carrier. That wouldn't accomplish anything because that other carrier has the same terrible policies... All we'd do is feed another monster...

your only choice is basically to buy ridiculously overpriced phones off contract, and the carriers wouldn't really care much if you did that. They aren't making that much scratch off phones man.

 

[a44kaliburll]

You have the right spirit because we need to come together but if all we do is make a big noise and still buy motorola then we are blowing hot air. You have to be willing to make that decision with your wallet as well. CEOs see money and when stockholder are concerned they get fired. Do we have enough people to make them go back into bankruptcy, no. But we have enough voices and strength to make them an average phone and change another companies bottom line. The way its shaping out is if you want too mod then buy a google experience device or a nexus because it guarantees you that freedom. Other devices are designed to protect the company from average users who damage their device by hacking.

Right...but what if only 5 people total from this form decide to talk with their wallet...that does nothing. Verizon has a huge...HUGE consumer base and a few radicals wont make any dent to their earnings.

It has to be like a forum wide thing...and all people have to feel as stongly as the next guy to make change..

I am not suggesting that this is what this forum should do. Im simply saying...in history when things needed to be changed...(the american revolution, civil war, ect..) a massive amount of people had to take one side or the other...and until we all...and I mean a ton of people...decide to do that..nothing will happen...except of course VZW gets richer.

 

[13th angel]

Verizon notices that we dont look at our contract..and yes we do deserve to be taken to the cleaners...I think that the vast majority of Verizon customers are uninformed joe public. Those people will willingly pay out of their hats for a phone and not look at their contracts.

OK. I read my contract. Now what? Every carrier has the same stuff in their contract. So, my choice is $200 or $700.

Let's all buy Ferraris. They are better cars than Ford and Honda. We should make a statement to Ford and Honda to make their cars better by not buying them anymore.

wait...is that a question or a statement?

if its a question...I think what the OP did in his email was the first step...the second step would be to threaten cease of business...after that step its go back to verizon with my terms...then barter like you would with any market...("in the past you gave me 2 chickens for a dollar...now I want 2 chickens and 3 eggs..." "no but I can give you 2 chickens and 2 eggs for a dollar and 15 cents..")

its all in phases man...Start small end big..

That wouldn't work because we have no true power to barter with them. They have no reason to respond to any bartering we try because they get enough bussiness that one or two people refusing to accept their terms wouldn't hurt them much.

Sent from my Liberated D2G

 

[armedmonkey]

Even if you got all the forums for all the android phones out there to do something, it still wouldn't matter.

We are a REALLY small minority man. Most people who have android don't even know what a bootloader is, some of them don't know what a forum is. Even on these forums, you have people daily asking 'what would unlocking the bootloader do for me?'

My mom couldn't figure out what the crap City ID is and was afraid it was gonna start charging her, then wanted to call vzw and make sure it wouldn't even after i explained to her how it works.
My dad is a programmer, but he doesn't have the time to give a damn about this stuff. That's your user base.

 

[a44kaliburll]

I'm not sure what you're asking me about (question or statement)

I'm sorry to say you have a very naive way of seeing this. It seems to me like the underpants gnomes:

step 1. steal underpants
step 2. ....
step 3. profit

You can't threaten them cease of business. it would be impractical. Who are you saying we threaten? VZW or motorola?

I'm on contract for another year and a half. I'm not going to cancel that and move to a different carrier. That wouldn't accomplish anything because that other carrier has the same terrible policies... All we'd do is feed another monster...

your only choice is basically to buy ridiculously overpriced phones off contract, and the carriers wouldn't really care much if you did that. They aren't making that much scratch off phones man.

would that be our only choice? Id say a really strong choice is to petition motorola or HTC and say "hey guys...whats verizon giving you? We are willing to pay a little more to get it straight from you."

Say the phones cost $250 dollars to be made...VZW pays 400 and then ups the price, unsubsidized to $750.

We tell Moto...look you have enough of us saying we want your products if our terms are met...and we will pay you $500 per phone...

the only problem with that is that people would rather take the $200 phone because its cheaper (initially) and suffer with what the "man" has to say.

 

[Backnblack]

We are a REALLY small minority man. Most people who have android don't even know what a bootloader is, some of them don't know what a forum is. Even on these forums, you have people daily asking 'what would unlocking the bootloader do for me?'

How true... Most (I would say 99%) of all cell phone users just want a device that does call, email, surfing, games ect...and could care less about anything outside the box.

 

[pc747]

You have the right spirit because we need to come together but if all we do is make a big noise and still buy motorola then we are blowing hot air. You have to be willing to make that decision with your wallet as well. CEOs see money and when stockholder are concerned they get fired. Do we have enough people to make them go back into bankruptcy, no. But we have enough voices and strength to make them an average phone and change another companies bottom line. The way its shaping out is if you want too mod then buy a google experience device or a nexus because it guarantees you that freedom. Other devices are designed to protect the company from average users who damage their device by hacking.

Right...but what if only 5 people total from this form decide to talk with their wallet...that does nothing. Verizon has a huge...HUGE consumer base and a few radicals wont make any dent to their earnings.

It has to be like a forum wide thing...and all people have to feel as stongly as the next guy to make change..

I am not suggesting that this is what this forum should do. Im simply saying...in history when things needed to be changed...(the american revolution, civil war, ect..) a massive amount of people had to take one side or the other...and until we all...and I mean a ton of people...decide to do that..nothing will happen...except of course VZW gets richer.

Its not as much a vzw this as it is an oem thing. And you right people will not all follow and that is why motorola will continue their process. The bionic is an inferior phone to the atrix, moto and vzw are feeding the public a cheaper version of the atrix that will probably be the same price or more. I bet there will be a line at vz for it and the same people complaining about being locked down will be locked to another 2 year deal with moto/vzw. Its when moto gets embarrassed, like what is happening with the xoom, and they cant give them away is when you will start seeing change with motorola.

 

[a44kaliburll]

Even if you got all the forums for all the android phones out there to do something, it still wouldn't matter.

We are a REALLY small minority man. Most people who have android don't even know what a bootloader is, some of them don't know what a forum is. Even on these forums, you have people daily asking 'what would unlocking the bootloader do for me?'

My mom couldn't figure out what the crap City ID is and was afraid it was gonna start charging her, then wanted to call vzw and make sure it wouldn't even after i explained to her how it works.
My dad is a programmer, but he doesn't have the time to give a damn about this stuff. That's your user base.

And what you are saying is essentially what I am trying to point out...we all are a very very small minority...but, in the past, how has the minority changed history? How has the underdog come out on top? Its because they got enough people...and thought hard about what to do and how to do it.

Why is it too far fetched to get our phones from motorola? Why cant we pay a better price to get straight from them rather than straight from VZW?

when that happens VZW will have to make a change.

 

[armedmonkey]

I think you don't know enough about this stuff to see why your points are moot.

There are contracts and agreements between VZW and Moto promising all kinds of exclusivity. Why do you think that Samsung released the same phone to 3 carriers with 3 different names (and in one case slightly different specs)?

What you're saying won't work. It's more work for motorola, and they won't really win anything by doing it.

Moto wants to keep uneducated ppl from taking up their time on tech support and refurbs.

If you want me to take you seriously, you're gonna have to come up with something more concrete than just "let's petition them and bargain them for chickens", because I fail to see how you envision combating the lack of impetus that a small group of people have against an oligopoly without resorting to terrorism, riots, and extreme measures of self-denial (in terms of the convenience we allow ourselves).

ie: moto and vzw and wearing clothes made 100% on hemp, riding our bikes 60 miles per day, and smashing our phones, what do you actually propose we do? Again, be realistic.

 

[a44kaliburll]

We are a REALLY small minority man. Most people who have android don't even know what a bootloader is, some of them don't know what a forum is. Even on these forums, you have people daily asking 'what would unlocking the bootloader do for me?'

How true... Most (I would say 99%) of all cell phone users just want a device that does call, email, surfing, games ect...and could care less about anything outside the box.

You have the right spirit because we need to come together but if all we do is make a big noise and still buy motorola then we are blowing hot air. You have to be willing to make that decision with your wallet as well. CEOs see money and when stockholder are concerned they get fired. Do we have enough people to make them go back into bankruptcy, no. But we have enough voices and strength to make them an average phone and change another companies bottom line. The way its shaping out is if you want too mod then buy a google experience device or a nexus because it guarantees you that freedom. Other devices are designed to protect the company from average users who damage their device by hacking.

Right...but what if only 5 people total from this form decide to talk with their wallet...that does nothing. Verizon has a huge...HUGE consumer base and a few radicals wont make any dent to their earnings.

It has to be like a forum wide thing...and all people have to feel as stongly as the next guy to make change..

I am not suggesting that this is what this forum should do. Im simply saying...in history when things needed to be changed...(the american revolution, civil war, ect..) a massive amount of people had to take one side or the other...and until we all...and I mean a ton of people...decide to do that..nothing will happen...except of course VZW gets richer.

Its not as much a vzw this as it is an oem thing. And you right people will not all follow and that is why motorola will continue their process. The bionic is an inferior phone to the atrix, moto and vzw are feeding the public a cheaper version of the atrix that will probably be the same price or more. I bet there will be a line at vz for it and the same people complaining about being locked down will be locked to another 2 year deal with moto/vzw. Its when moto gets embarrassed, like what is happening with the xoom, and they cant give them away is when you will start seeing change with motorola.

But what are some ways to beat them? What are some ideas that we can actually make our minority a bigger voice...

innovation occurs when a small minority bands together and works hard to make a change...

We can all keep the notion that...yes, we are a very very small consumer base...and yes no one will follow until they too become more informed about how many hands are in our pockets at one time...but my question is this...

what are some viable ways or ideas we could combat this garbage?

 

[teh_g]

I still stand by the fact that asking doesn't hurt. Sure, we may be a minority, but anyone who has taken a business course or has any knowledge of business knows that it is people like us that push people in to the Android market. Do you really think the OG Droid would have been popular at all if it weren't for a bunch of geeks telling their friends?

 

[pc747]

I think you don't know enough about this stuff to see why your points are moot.

There are contracts and agreements between VZW and Moto promising all kinds of exclusivity. Why do you think that Samsung released the same phone to 3 carriers with 3 different names (and in one case slightly different specs)?

What you're saying won't work. It's more work for motorola, and they won't really win anything by doing it.

Moto wants to keep uneducated ppl from taking up their time on tech support and refurbs.

If you want me to take you seriously, you're gonna have to come up with something more concrete than just "let's petition them and bargain them for chickens", because I fail to see how you envision combating the lack of impetus that a small group of people have against an oligopoly without resorting to terrorism, riots, and extreme measures of self-denial (in terms of the convenience we allow ourselves).

ie: moto and vzw and wearing clothes made 100% on hemp, riding our bikes 60 miles per day, and smashing our phones, what do you actually propose we do? Again, be realistic.

Hence why I said they way its shaping up is if you want to mod your device buy a google experience device or a nexus.

 

[armedmonkey]

Hence why I said they way its shaping up is if you want to mod your device buy a google experience device or a nexus.

I agree. I'm just saying that the amount of people who will do that won't make a dent in the monolith. It won't achieve change, which is what the other guy is going for.