I just read through a web article called Sucker: How Cable Companies Make You Pay For Channels You'll Never Watch on http://www.alternet.org/ right after reading an article in our local paper about the "battle" being waged between MSG and Time Warner Cable. I made reference to this battle back on January 8, and during the time since then I have become less enchanted with how cable companies operate. The article "Sucker" did make a plea for “à la carte” programming, which was fairly well slammed in another article in The New Yorker of January 25, 2010. (Click here).

The consumer benefit of  “à la carte” programming is slammed as being potentially more like a "bait and switch" tactic in an article at www.itworld.com (Click here for the article).

However the MSG-Time Warner struggle ends up, I feel that one guarantee is that my wishes and the wishes of most customers will be only marginally considered. To them I am just one blip on a radar screen, and their only concern is how much the blips pay them as a group. One blip is irrelevant, or so their actions make it seem.

The prime method a consumer has in taking issue with a product is to boycott it. Yet, with cable TV and its lack of strong competition, a mass boycott is not likely to happen. Or is it?