Youtube tv just raised their rates $10/month to $50.. Pretty soon it will be cheaper to go back to cable if this keeps up. All of the big providers have gone up quite a bit over the last two years. Looks like a Philo/Sling combo will be the way to go assuming their pricing stays lower.

But they added channels that my wife was sad about leaving behind, so that price hike was okay for us.

Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, and MotorTrend.

I predicted a while ago that prices for live streaming services were going to get so high that we're all going to go back to having cable or satellite.

I would be happy if someone came out with an all sports streaming package. Fubo comes close but they're over $50 a month.

I know many of you are too straight arrow or just don't want to go to this place. (maybe you speed while driving so prob breaking the rules already
Vader Streams has every game of every sport on in their Matchcenter area and also every channel you would ever want.

I know you can hide behind a VPN, but how do you pay anonymously?

I didn't

A couple of the streaming sites do, one had a pay service called "circle pay" . I didn't even have access to that service here.

*edit. - I used paypal and the provider I paid, makes it looks like a server rental provider.

Ehh, if they ever get busted, they'll cough up that customer list without blinking an eye. It does look neat though.

For sure.... it just isn't worth it. I have been an IT professional for a long time. Something silly like getting busted for watching illegal TV would probably end my job in short order. The ethics come into play, and with the access to information I have at my job, if my strong ethics were ever questioned, I would be gone in short order.

Still loving my 25.00 a month Sling TV, best thing i ever did!

They'd probably just threaten legal action unless you pay them a set amount to go away. That's what happened when DirecTV started going after people who bought hacking hardware from vendors like this. When a site got busted, most of them turned those customer lists over real quick. Customers either paid up or lawyered up.

Ethics are fluid. I've seen some very "ethical" people get real unethical when the shit actually hits the fan. I'm personally not gonna judge your moral compass on whether you've streamed a few ill-gotten movies.

I'm pretty frustrated over all of these new streaming services. All of the channels seem to be headed that way, and with exclusive content - CBS, AMC, and now all of Disney. I don't see it as anything other than bad news for everyone.

Bitcoin

I just signed up for the 7 day free trial of Sling TV, going to see how I like it. It looks like they are doing a 3 month 40% off promotion, both orange & blue packages for $25 a month. Seems like a good deal to me.

Also since its baseball season, I've been streaming all the games through the Reddit MLB Streams page. So much nicer then having to pay a cable bill.

Yeah, when all of these mega-mergers were happening, the writing was on the wall. ATT was the first to show their true colors ("we won't be raising rates with our merger"- 10 months later rates were raised and channels were removed on directtv now). Disney now owns everything in the world, so it is just a matter of time before everyone jumps to Disney +. From what I have read, they plan on offering their service around the $6.00/month mark, so I think once they can establish a user base, in true Disney fashion, they will escalate their fees very quickly. Time will tell.

Sling has Fox Sports so thats how we watch our team. Sling TV also works much better with a Roku Ultra box than a Firestick, just something to consider. I am with Sling now and i really like it a lot so far.

Since I know nothing about bitcoin and it seemed intimidating to learn how, I decided to sleuth out how to pay completely anonymously in some other way. Here's how I did it. I'm going to belabor the details with you to convince you.

First, I decided I wanted NordVPN as my vpn. To communicate with them anonymously, I opened a protonmail email account which itself requires no identifying information from me. Using protonmail, I communicated to NordVPN what I wanted to accomplish but without using bitcoin and I said that I was not in their same country.

They have a number of payment methods, most were unique to Europe and I did not recognize them, but one that was available in the USA was something called Openbucks. I learned that Openbucks is a system devised by an American who wanted to help people who do not have bank accounts to be able pay for things over the internet, using gift cards. From the Openbucks website:

"The magic of the Openbucks online payment platform is that there are no 'Openbucks' gift cards. Openbucks leverages existing prepaid and gift cards of top trusted brands such as SUBWAY, CVS/Pharmacy, Dollar General and more. Any of the cards offered as a payment method through the Openbucks platform will work for your online payment if it is listed as an option from the merchant site you are purchasing from."

A Subway gift card was listed among the Openbucks cards accepted by NordVPN and since these stores are everywhere it was the one I would use.

To further pave the way for my plan, I contacted Openbucks (using protonmail) to confirm that a (Subway) gift card bought in the United States could be used to pay a company that resides outside of the United States. Somewhere in my research I read about others running into this obstacle and I didn't want to buy the card then find at the last minute I got refused on NordVPN' website. Openbucks gave me this reply:

"So long as you see Openbucks, or any of Openbucks' supported gift cards, as an option on the merchant page you are trying to purchase from, then you are good to use those cards which are bought on stores from the United States. Conversely speaking, Openbucks supported gift cards gift card purchased in the United States does not restrict you to buy only from companies based in the United States. A tip also: you may find that for some websites, the option may not be instantly presented. On this case, you may have to change the currency or “country” of payment. If you would do that, then you may be able to see options for Openbucks supported gift cards. "

The trick is, according to others who have tried and failed, do NOT buy the gift card at a grocery store like Safeway where you often see a whole rack full of gift cards for all sorts of companies. Those gift cards will not work for this. You MUST buy the card at the actual store itself. So I called ahead to the Subway nearest me to make sure they had some gift cards available, went there, paid them in cash to load a Subway gift card with the exact amount that NordVPN wanted from me.

Ok, the last part of the plan is, whose computer do I use to make this online payment anonymously? I don't want to use my own computer. I can't use the computer at the public library because they require that I log in with my library card. Well, it just so happens that our city has several Senior Citizen Centers and they have computer terminals for senior citizens and, as you might know, senior citizens are well-known for not putting up with surrendering any personal information, meaning there are no login codes at their terminals. I went down to one of the centers (after calling first to ask to use one of their terminals), pulled up the NordVPN website payment portal (I rehearsed as much as I could on my home computer beforehand) and entered the number off of my Subway gift card.

Voila. I opened an account with NordVPN using a gift card from cash, all done anonymously. No name, no personal information given to anyone. No bitcoin involved. I saved the Subway gift card so I can do it again when it come times to renew with NordVPN.

So they loose 250K streamers last quarter, then they cut the number of channels and up the price by $10 but get HBO for FREE which used to cost $5/month extra before (now $19.99).

I used to pay a little over $200 a month to Comcast for HD TV w/DVR, 20MB internet and telephone. Every month they would creep the price up and I'd have to call to get it reduced.

Now I have 100MB FIOS ($30), DirectTVNow (was $40, goes up to grandfathered $50 this month) and OOMA ($6 plus $10 for call blocking) for a total of $96. A savings per month of over $1200/year. I did go out and by my own routers and ROKU sets to get started, about $200 investment.

We still watch what we did on Comcast, the internet is faster and phone quality is just as good and love saving the money!!

But Bitcoin isn't really anonymous?

Thanks! This is good info. Looks like Openbucks is about to stop accepting Subway gift cards though. I suspect that might be a trend.

https://www.openbucks.com/news/subway-notice.html

How are you implementing NordVPN? At the router level? I have Google Home, and it works great...but no official VPN support, and I don't want to use a PC to route what now seems like 30ish devices (a lot of Smart Home stuff) to the net. So I need to start looking at router that supports it, ideally a mesh network.

I did some reading up on VPN's, and Nord seems like the way to go, given no 5 Eyes, etc issues as w/some VPN's

Interesting reading about 5 Eyes (and the other 'Eye's) here: https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/understanding-five-eyes-concept/

Don't do anything like torrents, downloading movies, stealing cable, etc...but if I'm going thru the effort of a VPN, I want it to be a secure VPN. Wife's computer got hacked once.

nvidia shield is the only way to go extremely fast comes with controller can link to your steam account and or pc and stream your games and extremely easy to hook up a thumbstick or usb hard drive loaded with movies or all classic game emulators.

Lots of good stuff on AVSForum.com in regards to every aspect of audio and video equipment, streaming, HT, etc etc. I spend more time there than I do here with my pinball stuff.

Personally I access a ton of US stuff through ATV, via Hulu and all the live and SVOD cable stuff you can add on via that subscription.

You're welcome, and thanks for the heads up on Subway. I'll use a different card when renewing. Be sure the card you select is on NordVPN's list.

Yeah, the 5 Eyes and 7 Eyes thing. I really researched the various vpns and decided on NordVPN. Plus they claim to be out of Panama which has no disclosure agreement with anybody. I've implemented NordVPN at the device level. I thought about doing it at the router level but my current router does not support it and I didn't want to buy a replacement router nor did I want to piggyback routers to keep my ISP happy with their router yet also have a router VPN. The NordVPN folks helped me with installing the app on my cellphone as I am not adept when it comes to cellphone apps yet really it was easy, as it was for my desktop and laptop where downloading programs is old hat. I have only a PC, a laptop, a cellphone, and a kodi box. Some online articles made it sound like router-level vpn was so much better and cooler and that device level vpn was such a pain, but really it's not at all. In fact, I believe device level is more flexible because I can have some devices on the vpn while other devices are not, whereas with a router vpn it's all devices on the vpn at the same time or all devices off the vpn at the same time. No selectivity.

This whole vpn thing started when I had 7 MB internet and an old friend who is also a distributor for Bluebox (kodi) finally talked me into getting one which he sold to me at his cost. You can stream a world of stuff on it and it's only illegal in the USA if you download but it has no internal storage and since you will never install an SD card in its slot you will never download. Streaming is legal in the USA (last I read the UK finally made streaming kodi illegal there) and they call it a "gray area" in the USA but I sense that is because no website wants to say anything on its own except to replicate the verbiage that's already out there. Cowards. But I digress.

Bluebox only works if your internet will download at minimum 10MB so I had to upgrade and I went with 100MB knowing that the kodi, like my laptop, will wi-fi at much lower than 100MB but still come in above 10MB. I downloaded NordVPN to my kodi and it's there for my emotional security that my ISP cannot see when I am streaming to my kodi in case they send a fake and unenforceable C&D which I have read has happened to others. Ha, last week I got a free upgrade from my ISP from 100MB to 1G (actually 930 down / 930 up) and I'm not even a gamer. I just visit websites like pinside, I don't stream music or TV, just youtube. Heck, I turn on my kodi maybe once a month. I'm way over my head on internet speed. The fun was in the challenge of getting the vpn anonymously and copping high speed internet at best prices. Other than what kodi might represent, I do not live on the edge of the law and am harmless, but I do like my privacy and thus the vpn.

Thanks for the input. Given the Smart Home devices (which really aren't very secure from what I read), I think the only easy way to go for me is the router based method. Which means ditching a Google Home that's only 6 months old and spending a few hundred again for a router that supports Nord. Once and done, I guess.

I used Kodi sometimes for the overseas channel feeds, but really just prefer watching Philo for cable channels. Kodi, while being seriously powerful (IMO), seems like too much work and wife wouldn't even touch it. Even more so, I was always worried if I was giving someone (not the Kodi team but others) possible access to the network. Just too many devious people out there trying to get into your devices nowadays...

I really posted the 5 Eyes etc. for others, figured you were fully aware of it. Rather interesting seeing not all VPN's are created equal.

How's Nord's servers speeds? Any issues w/ping times?

Nord apparently leases servers or space on servers from individual companies around the country. In my city, there are several companies. In the NordVPN software, you can select a server by city or let them choose the "fastest" one (whatever that means) and then, once connected, I lookup the IP I got to see what company it is and I do a speedtest. I recorded the test results on a spreadsheet. From this, I could mark in NordVPN my "favorite" servers which would be the consistently fastest ones. It's also based on how occupied a given server is at a given time of day that affects speed. They list them by lowest percentage of occupancy. Their little pop-up window for this shrunk after their last update and now it's kinda small for the clicking and scrolling there that one needs to do. I hope they fix that next update. You'll get the hang of it. My test results of 53 local servers when I was at 100MB service gave me a download range of 63 to 106 and upload of 42 to 50. I favorited the ones that gave me 98MB (or more) download consistently, of which there were many. I also found that not all servers allowed me to send email! So, I excluded those from my list of favorites. Occasionally, some of your favorites may inexplicably disappear from the list of choices and that may be due to expiring contracts or unknown reasons. I've seen them soon reappear in a few days so I don't know what's going on there.

Just now, I tried my NordVPN with my new 1G service and on one of my favorite servers I got a measly 150 download and 164 upload. That's a far cry from 1G but more than when I had 100Mb service.

I hope I am answering your questions to any extent.

Answers were spot on. Thanks! I have 50/25 meg (plenty good for streaming), so it's sounds reasonable I won't see a hit on a speed test, but was worried about ping times if a server was halfway around the planet. Good to know some are state side.

I'm convinced...this is some shady business and knowledge. For all of the effort presumably to protect your privacy and from prying eyes from illicit activities? Isn't this a family friendly website? I imagine all of that searching to find that detail left its own trail, and like ants following a path to food, came from a lot of other users along that process deigned to support a much wider and more sinister intent, making the Subway card perhaps unintended but never-the-less ironic touch. If I had to guess it's source is as much a codeword as it is an example for others to use. If you didn't consider it at the time, maybe one should consider it now. Super creepy and out of place here IMO.

Paying to steal content is wrong enough you sought an insanely elaborate plan to protect yourself from its liabilities treading in a path worn smooth by some very dark and ill intended predecessors. Wow.

I won't go into detail about what parts of your plan did little to actually hide your activity from prying eyes because it only helps others who do the same. If your innocent and naive to this, consider that what your doing is only marginally different and to what effect?

What part of protecting privacy is not family friendly? Is using cash also a sign of illicit activity in your world? If you use your VPNs DNS servers, your searching won't leave a trail when combined with MAC address spoofing.

The part where its used to do something illegal or immoral.

Not sure what that has to do with any of this. We live in the same world. Cash is legal tender. It depends on what you spend it on. Same as the response above.

It makes you hard to find, but not invisible.

Where did I say protecting privacy == do something illegal?

Cash is an untraceable transaction. Just as the intent of internet privacy is.

Right here. In this quote.

You asked a question. I answered. I was, remember, responding to vanilla's elaborately constructed post on how he steals media content using a subway card and the library. The fact he uses a VPN is immaterial to the point. The point I was hoping to make, that you may have missed or not feel is as important, is that the effort mirrors the effort and is built upon a process that supports a number of illegal activities. I don't think that's appropriate at all, let alone for Pinside.

I don't have any problems with VPN or internet privacy. I didn't say I did, but maybe you think I did?

If you wear gloves, a ski mask, and drive up in an unmarked car in the black of night, still not true.

Do you intend conflate internet privacy with untraceable actions? They can be associated but aren't conditional to either part. Have all the privacy you want. For those that do legitimately for what ever reason, more power too them.

Don't let my attention to detail in my elaborating what I explained to the other fellow confuse you to think that it's an elaborate plan, let alone insanely elaborate. I bought a software program online. People do that everyday and what I did, by your own statements, did not protect my anonymity. Someone had to figure out http protocol when it was invented, now THAT'S insanely elaborate to me. Making an online purchase by figuring out their EXISTING rules, not elaborate. And definitely not shady. My friend helped others understand the process of adopting a baby from China. Lot of detail. Shady?

I think the ethics issue lies in here: There are online a plethora of URLs placed on the WWW by people who have somehow, somewhere, made movies available for anyone to pull up any one of those URLs to stream whatever comes at ya. It may be a movie. It may be spam. It may be a movie of a different title than what the URL had you think it was going to be. It may be anything. We don't get to know who these people are or how these URLs got there but the URLs are there and you could access them. Right now. For free. Just do it. Like how one pulls up a URL on youtube then streams what is presented by that URL. You or anyone could do it today, pull one up on your browser right now, if you knew what URLs they were. It would take a bit of searching but these URLs of which I speak can be found by anyone with lots of time on their hands, I am told. These URLs are obviously there or else no one could pull them up. Some come, some go, many remain. You could, if you wanted, search for them and write them all down on a spreadsheet for future reference. You could, if you wanted, click on your spreadsheet any of the URLs that you had painstakingly researched and had placed on it such that your computer would recognize your mouse click and recognize the URL format on your spreadsheet and open a browser window and search and bring up that URL, then to your screen comes whatever comes. If it's spam or otherwise not what you expected, you cross it off of your spreadsheet.

But that would be a lot of research to gather up and maintain a constantly changing list of URLs and few people have the time for that. So, what Bluebox did, as a company, is make a search menu. That's what I bought. A search menu. They have organized the URLs that exist out there into a convenient searchable menu. By buying Bluebox, I've paid someone to do the labor of assembling a searchable spreadsheet, if you will, so that I didn't have to. This searchable list may pull up dead URLs, may pull up something that does not match what I thought I was getting, mostly this does not happen, but often does. It can be quite sloppy and frustrating actually, but there you are.

Youtube organizes URLs for your searching convenience. Bluebox, a legal company, does this as well. Is it stealing to stream what is there on the web? (Not in the USA.) Do we look the other way when something on youtube presents itself for easy viewing but a week later youtube pulls it down? Do we tell ourselves that we stole by watching what youtube later pulled down? Did we actually steal, or are we absolved because the duty falls upon youtube to police their search engine? Does it fall upon me to police the web or can I type in any URL that my keyboard allows? Can I use software to organize my typing for me? Can I make a legal purchase of this software? Yes, and that is what I did.

Does it sound unseemly? Shifting slightly, do people buy cigarettes and fireworks on the reservations and is that stealing money from the USG? Some people drive a ways to go to the reservations for these purchases. Would you consider that effort as elaborate? Do you buy imported items when you know Americans invented these same items and make them but at a higher price? Are we stealing to go around these Americans? How do we justify these things? Is our morality decided by who profits for one thing but not the other thing? Or who got to us first and brainwashed us in their favor?

These are the issues, methinks.

Yep. That guy in the mirror, that's you. I don't have to justify or hide my actions.

We're not going to agree. If other's want to wade in that swamp, they'll find your post helpful. I stand by my opinion of its appropriateness. I'm less interested in convincing you, than I am of preventing some other poor soul from walking into those fetid waters thinking its OK and without risks.

Maybe if your ever robbed, you'll use that logic to justify the new owner of your things as legit and in their right. I mean it was on this planet and they're on it too.

You dodged my entire last paragraph. Hide? My God, I've been explaining with transparency, yet you flee.

Many processes that support illegal activities also support legal ones. My point is you can't deem the process bad.

If someone comes into my house and leaves my house, you have no way of telling what cash transaction occurred.

No, I ignored it. I already said we're not going to agree, why spend effort on your justification or warped concepts of right and wrong. If it begins or ends with something wrong, what's in the middle doesn't really matter. I think its ironic that you can't seem to see the line and the fireworks example is a literal crossing of the line. Its the LINE that matters. How some people don't see that is beyond me.

The point is simple. Your stealing content. You didn't pay the people who made it, you paid people who stole it and made it easy to steal. You paying the wrong people to what end? None of that is right. Your obviously ok with it, but want to pretend it doesn't have consequences. You don't want those people to have your credit card because you know that it can tie to an illegal action as defined by the law and possibly because you know those types can't be trusted with your information.

They aren't using that process to buy groceries or donate to charity. I won't argue that it can't be used legitimately, but can argue that it largely isn't. Every swamp has clean water running in and out. But in the middle, its swamp.

Me personally, agree. I think your meaning to imply its an untraceable action. I think our concepts of untraceable are different. There are a lot of people in prison today who conducted their illicit activities in cash. I'm not sure it served them as well as they thought at the time.

So are you saying that any process that can be used for illegal activity is to be seen as immoral or dirty (swamp) even if it is used for a legal activity?

No, I did mean transaction, as in swapping cash for a pinball machine. I have friends who will only accept cash. Again, you need to think about legal situations.

You should spend the effort because you are here talking to me, that's why. Don't act superior then run away. If you read what I wrote at the end there, you should see that I asked probing questions about these ethics and not intransigent declarative statements! Are you unwilling to approach the muddiness I mention? Most people are unwilling as it takes them out of their comfort zone. That doesn't make you bad. Nor does it make me illegal. I bought a vpn using Openbucks, all explained to me by each company. All legal! The fact that I met a personal challenge to do it anonymously somehow makes it bad in your eyes. Remember, buying a vpn is a legal act. By the way, my purchase of the kodi box was very public: I wrote a check! I think you are combining the fun I had figuring out how to buy a vpn anonymously with the fact I bought a kodi box. The anonymous purchase has nothing to do with the kodi. It was a challenge to myself to see if I could do it, for all of the folks who only insisted it had to be done via bitcoin.

Um, stealing things from my house, the example you gave, is illegal while streaming online in the USA is not. Big difference. You dislike that I ride the margins here, I get that. But I've spent too long being a sucker for businesses who lie to me about what my rights are so that they can take my money. I bet that is an immorality that you support! When they outlaw streaming in the USA like they did in the UK, of course I will stop. That's how unimportant this margin is to me. I haven't turned on my kodi box in a month.

I have OTA TV, too. Is that stealing to you because I am not paying a cable company?

No. I'm saying when its used for illegal and immoral purposes it is the swamp. If you do legal and appropriate things in the swamp, you are not quantifiable as immoral or illegal. However, when you support a process that is largely used for those types of things, and the originator of that process profits, your adding to the machinery of illicit activity that makes that kind of thing possible. I try to be aware of that, and recognize that any participation, even on the 'legitimate' periphery, may be in part used to bolster and further a mechanism that is doing more harm than good. For that reason I woudln't conduct my business through that venue, no mater the reason. My view, even if unintended, would be enabling them to support illegal activities.

I recognize almost anything can be made and bent to the will of evil and wrong. However being aware and making choices is important to me personally. The other uses of that kind of transaction are so vile and pernicious that they must be avoided by me if at all possible. I want no part of it.

Nothing wrong with that. However the line is if that is legally income and reported as such.

Like I said, we won't agree. To you muddy includes some aspect of right. To me, its clear water or dirty.

You know, VacFink, what you wrote in Post #291 is well said and quite potent. Too bad you didn't say it to me but instead gave up on me. Somewhere in this you decided I was not worth those words.

Please know, however, that you are factually incorrect about why I bought the vpn anonymously.

That's not what I intended. I did respond, I'm not sure what your missing. We don't agree. You suggest there is morality and right and wrong have a grey area. I disagree. Your examples do not differ or show a change in that concept, but intend to reinforce them. Because our views differ, it only furthers each of our own views in opposite directions. Your fireworks example isn't grey to me, its black and white. Can you buy those things legally there. Yes. Can you take them across state lines, depends. If you do, and its legal, you can't use them, because the state your in deemed it illegal. The part that's legal is always legal. The part that isn't will always no be. Mixing the two doesn't muddy the water, unless you want it to be muddy. I'm not looking for a way to justify that, because I'd stay on my side of the line, or go to the other side of the line, but for me there's no middle.

Even if you steal a loaf of bread because your hungry. Its wrong. It has consequences and impacts real people on both sides. The hungry person has food and can survive, but at what cost. To save pride so to not ask for help, or to find a solution that was more effort? That's not to say anyone should go hungry, only that those choices have consequences. Would I steal bread if I were starving. I don't know. I probably would, if I had asked and exhausted every imaginable way to survive without crossing that line. However I wouldn't think that made it right. I would still feel guilt and shame for that because its wrong.

I hope anyone, including you, get something from this discussion. We don't have to agree to take away something important and meaningful, even if its resolve.

I'm no fan of big business or their conduct, especially when it crosses the line. However our responses are different. Yours was to do something that also crosses the line. Mine was to stop supporting the business.

Its impressive what you did to learn how to cross that line, which is what got my attention originally. I can see now part of it was personal challenge, however it would seem that may have not entered into your thinking. I wonder if that same effort and problem solving would have been better served doing something that didn't cross the line. Granted it might not have included HBO. For me its different. I chose instead to live without it. Do I like that? No not really, but I made a different choice.

PM me if you want to continue the conversation. I hope that answers what you wanted.

Many years ago, in my youth, I went to Shakey's Pizza and stood in line at their inside counter. The guy ahead of me ordered a pizza based on the price menu taped to the counter in front of him. When his pizza was ready, the cashier quoted him a price much higher than what was on the printed menu, even considering tax. When the man complained, he was shown a hidden price menu in view of only the cashier, which had higher prices on it. He summoned the manager who said he could do nothing about it, that the higher price prevailed. The man walked out and I walked out behind him. That same year, the Shakey's in a neighboring town pulled the same thing on me with the hidden price menu. I walked out. Within a year, I was at the DQ and I order a hamburger. The cashier pressed the pre-programmed buttons and the price came up ten cents higher than what the price showed on the huge menu board behind the cashier. When I pointed this out, the teenage cashier got annoyed with me as if I was the bad guy. I asked to see the manager but he was not there. I knew they had to have a way to reach him so they called him on their payphone and I spoke to him. This was a matter of principle and I had Shakey's in mind. He instructed them to give me my dime, which they did with enmity. I was as exasperated as they were. Another time, I went to DQ and ordered a banana split but what they gave me was a sorry excuse for one, no pineapple or strawberry chunks, just syrup. I nicely told them I want one that looks like the poster on their wall because that's what got me out of my house to drive down there. They couldn't believe my "nerve" and begrudgingly remade it. You'd think I was the only one who ever expected a well-made banana spit.

What's wrong with all of these people, I wondered. I called up the State Government, got the right department, and asked the man why is this ok, the bait and switch pricing. He explained that the world is still on the barter system in spite of appearances. If I see a price marked on the shelf in a store and bring that product to the register, the store is allowed to renegotiate right there at the register what price they want for it. They get to ask for a higher price and it is up to me to barter right then and there, or not. And that is what Shakey's and DQ had done. They were within the law to seek a higher price at Point of Sale. I was within my rights to seek a lower price or walk out if we could not come to terms. The morality that I had brought with me to each instance was a misplaced one. This is business. However, the govt man said, if a store EXTERNALLY advertises a price, like on TV or on their sign out front, and that advertised price makes you pull over and go inside the store to buy it, then they cannot legally adjust the price upwards. Only if the price advertised was in-store and not externally advertised can they barter at the register.

Equipped with this new knowledge, within the year I visited a hardware store in the same town and grabbed a ladder advertised on the shelf at $34.99. The cashier rang it up at $25.99 and spoke that lower price. Now, my misplaced morality would have had me ask her if she made a mistake. But now that I was educated in the laws of business, I knew that the price was subject to barter at the register and if the store wants to charge me less it is their legal prerogative. Bartering works in my favor as well. I agreed with their Point of Sale price and I paid it. Did it feel wrong? Why yes it did, but I was under the influence of a morality taught me by someone who did not understand the rules of business in our state. Have I adapted in the years since then, to no longer always make a morality tale out of business transactions? You bet I have. In the mean time, I am sure I look dirty and tainted to anyone who assumes that a personal interpretation of morality is appropriate everywhere. Nope, it's not, otherwise imagine how disillusioned and bitter I might be by now after running into a lifetime of business transactions if I had insisted the world conform to my pure-as-the-driven-snow worldview of younger days.

You see me as having unclean hands. I see it as certain businesses need to attend to the laws and quit playing me to a youthful ignorance I no longer have. I will not climb up on that cross and suffer so others can appear virtuous. They can get off their duff and fix it. Somewhere in this endless game that the business world plays on people, I have to also contend with spectators having the beautiful sweetness of you whose POV benefits the businesses and they know it, and so do I.

Thank you.

Too good to be true, I just knew 32 new posts in the "CUTTING THE CORD" thread was gonna be an ethics argument

Thanks for the link on that. I plan on mounting an antenna like the one you linked to inside my attic - does anyone have any thoughts about a grounding rod for an "indoor" antenna installation? I live in south Florida, so we get some pretty heavy thunderstorms on a semi-regular basis....

..and on a side note. I got tired of paying AT&T too much $$ for my cell phone. I'll try Mint Mobile for a bit - you can get unlimited text, voice and 12G of data for $25/month if you prepay for a year (I have used up to 12 gig a month in the past but never go over it). It's the AT&T network, so my coverage won't change, though my data might get throttled down a bit. I can usually log in to a wifi network if it becomes an issue...