Can someone explain to me how stealing cable increases cost to those that don’t steal it? It isn’t like stealing from Wal-Mart, they have to replace the stolen item as well as hire security. As for cable, the hardware is already in place, the cable company doesn’t have to do any work to install it. And the signal is already being sent, the cable company doesn’t have to send any extra signal. So where is the added cost?
The added ‘cost’ comes from the total amount of money the cable company makes in a given year. If one person was receiving cable it would cost him/her a few million dollars a year. When a 100,000 people get cable it costs them a few hundred dollars a year.
As a group everyone is sharing the cost of maintaining the cable network including people, miles of cable runs and equipment with a little left over for profit for the company. Someone stealing cable is not sharing their fair share of the cost meaning everyone else has to pick up the tab so they can watch TV.
You might say that one person doing this doesn’t register in any meaningful way on companies this size but then the same argument can be made for littering. Your one Coke can thrown on the ground in the forest is practically meaningless but when the 10,000 campers behind you do the same thing then it is a problem.
Every person who steals cable, but would get cable anyway if he couldn’t steal it, is not paying the cable company $40 or so every month.
An analogy: I had a roommate who thought that since I had to pay rent for my apartment anyway, it didn’t matter if he paid his share of rent or not because one way or another the rent would be paid.
I’ve heard that illegal connections can mess up the signal for everyone on that particular line, but I don’t know about that. Back in the 80s the cable company put a filter on the line to prevent people from getting premium channels for free. (At the time, many teevees still had knobs, and some had micro-adjusters that could be tuned to the premium frequency.) The filter messed up the cable signal.
Exactly my point, you are going to pay the same rent either way, regardless of whether your friend is staying there or not. Him staying with you doensn’t increase what you pay. I agree that if everyone payed for cable it would be less for everyone, but someone stealing cable doesn’t increase your cost.
If a roommate paid his rent, the rent I pay would be 50% of what I had been paying. So by stealing space, my rent “goes up” 100%.
“But,” you say, “You’re already paying the full rent. Therefore, your rent doesn’t go up. It’s just not going down, and the cable compeny isn’t about to lower its rates if everyone pays.”
True. But let’s say you and a roommate get an apartment together. The rent is $800 per month, of which your share is $400. If he doesn’t pay, then your rent goes up to $800. Let’s say it costs a million people $1/month to cover the cost of cable. If half of those people stop paying, then the cost will go up to $2/month for each of them. If everyone is paying, and then a million more people steal the cable, then instead of paying $0.50/month, they are still paying $1/month.
I do see your point, but it’s not fair to the people who are paying if enough people aren’t.
Also, cable companies have to provide more and better content. Look at all of the new channels that pop up. These cost money. If people aren’t paying, the money has to come from the ones who are. This can increase cable bills.
No, this is exactly everyone else’s point. Johnny L.A.'s landlord imposes a fixed total cost on all the people who live in his apartment. If his cheapskate roomie doesn’t pay, Johnny has to pay twice as much. Likewise, even if a certain percentage of people don’t pay their bill, the cable company still has to charge enough to cover their expenses, plus enough profit to justify staying in that line of business. End result: that have to charge more to the people whom they can actually touch.
Having said all this, my whole apartment building steals cable, and I feel barely a twinge of guilt about it. However, I do at least understand the consequences to paying customers.
Make that * all the people he knows live in his apartment *
Ok, so theoretically everyone who is paying has to pay more because not everyone is paying their share. I can accept that arguement, even if I don’t agree with it.
But I guess the other part of my question is, where does the cable company incur increased cost due to cable stealers?
The rent analogy is not correct. It would only be correct if stealing cable resulted in decreased signal quality, etc., to those who paid for it. Just like a roommate takes up space and makes messes, etc.
If your roommate could somehow live in your apt. w/o it affecting you at all (say he’s the size of an atom or something), then he is not making you suffer, physically or financially. You don’t even know he’s there. For all you know, the total number of occupants of your apt. is equal to one: you. Likewise, if your cable service is not being harmed by cable thieves, it’s the same as if they weren’t even stealing the cable in the first place.
The cost of cable to legitimate consumers will be the same if other people are stealing cable or if they are simply not using any cable TV at all.
The employee who has to track down the illegal cable operation is spending time not fixing your cable that you paid for. The employee who has to go to court to testify about the same is also not available to hook you up until Tuesday.
So if the cable company didn’t hunt down stealers, there would be lower costs for subscribers? I think there should be a commercial about that.
Thank you toadspittle, I knew there was some flaw in that analogy, I just couldn’t think of it.
Just to clarify/emphasize: Your roommate is stealing space. Someone who’s stealing cable is stealing…what? How do you suffer? It’s not as though you only 50 channels instead of 70 when your neighbor steals cable.
The only time cable theft starts costing legit. consumers is when EVERYONE turns to stealing cable–when the actual number of CURRENT cable consumers decreases. But if the number of paying consumers remains stable, and only those w/o any cable service at all steal cable, no one is harmed (except perhaps by rerading the growth of the cable co.'s customer base).
Criminy, STEALING IS STEALING and trying to justify it like this is pure crap. Even if signal degradation does not affect paying customers and even if no one EVER finds out what you’re doing, it’s still stealing. The cable companies are businesses providing a product. When you avail yourself of that product without paying, you’re a thief, plain and simple. Play all the justifying mind games you wish to play - doesn’t make it right.
Sometimes I wonder how some people sleep at night…
Damn! “Retarding.” How ironic.
However, if someone wouldnt normally get cable if they couldnt get it free, then they don’t cost the cable company anything.
Sorry, Fairy, but that’s not the issue. The OP asked:
That’s what we’ve been answering.
If cable stealing happened on a large scale, it would increase the cable company’s cost directly. More taps on the cable means more signal amplifiers, etc. to supply adequate signal strength. I suppose if you just paid for basic cable, but stole the pay channels, this argument isn’t as compelling, since you’d presumably be paying enough to cover the extra cost of suppling your signal (your share of the cable, distribution amp, etc. needed to put the signal to your house).
The bottom line, though is that the fewer people who pay, the higher the cable company must raise rates on the people who DO pay. This argument has been offered several times now, but just to repeat- if 99% of the people stole cable, then the remaining 1% would have to shoulder the entire cost of supplying the signal (which isn’t cheap). No one could afford it, and the cable company would go out of business. The effect isn’t much if just 0.1% steal cable (I have no idea how many actually do).
The point ISN’T that your illegal tap doesn’t affect anything, so it’s not stealing. 1) It DOES increase costs directly, since more taps = more amplifiers, etc., although the marginal cost for one tap is probably small. Here you’re stealing from the cable company. 2) It costs them money every month to supply channels, which must be spread among paying customers. If you don’t pay, the remaining customers must pay more. Here you’re stealing from your neighbors.
These arguments are muddled somewhat by the fact that cable rates don’t seem to be directly related to actual costs, due to investment in new technologies (fiber, etc.), greed, etc.
Doesn’t matter to me, though- I use DirecTV 
When I didn’t sign up for cable after moving into my house, the cable company came and cut the line so I couldn’t steal it (not that I couldn’t hook it back up, but with our crappy signal, it isn’t worth it).
Arjuna34
Thank you. That makes the other stuff moot.
I beg to differ -
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The company has rights as well, to their property - which in this case, is a service.
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The company may decide to not do business in certain areas if the ‘theft’ rate is too high, which would mean that many would do without these services.
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If the number of paying consumers remains stable? Their costs undoubtably go up (employee costs, insurance, utlitites etc.), and if their number of paying customers merely remains stable, then each consumer will again be shouldering their fair share plus the share of the person who’s stealing.
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To claim that the cable companies are increasing their own costs by having employees deal with cable theives is the same as saying that no company should make any attempt to protect their interests/services/products. Why are you assuming that their service has no intrinsic value?