The dream of the nineties is alive in Portland...

What's with this strategy by giant corporations to announce a change in services that will make them more money by further screwing their customers only to retract it a few days or weeks later? I cannot believe that these corporations (whose successes would seem to suggest that they are deftly managed) imagine that these changes will be accepted by the consumers who will be adversely affected without complaint. I also cannot believe that any imaginable amount of threats that would eventually actually lead to loss of business would have any measurable effect on these corporations, as they are large enough to absorb almost any negative publicity. So, if it's unlikely that the management teams for these corporations (greedy as they may be) are dumb enough to think that consumers of their products will blindly accept changes which adversely affect their wallets, and it's also unlikely that the impending changes were abandoned because of a legitimate fear of the consumer's boycotting power, then there must be another reason for these apparent missteps by two of our country's largest and richest corporations. 

I've been thinking about this a lot since the recent news of the proposed then abandoned "convenience charge" that Verizon supposedly wished to impose on its customers who chose to pay their bill online or by telephone. Now, I won't get into the ridiculousness of a company as large as Verizon needing to charge a "convenience fee" for paying bills online to stay afloat (especially when every other company under the sun is practically forcing online billing on its customers to cut back on mailing costs), as I'm sure that point has been obvious to everyone familiar with the scenario. What strikes me more about both the Verizon convenience charge and Bank of America debit card fee situations is a little further below the surface. I'm not usually much of a conspiracy theorist (though I do think they're fun to think about), but the more I think about these situations, the more I start to feel like a Jeff Goldblum character (pre-Law and Order).  

I think Verizon and Bank of America, for their ultimate, long-term advantage,  intentionally drew the ire of their customers so they could instill false senses of hope and power in the American consumer. 

Think about it. I'll use the analogy of a toddler who is up past his bedtime. He's clearly tired. His eyelids are tiny anvils. Most likely he's stationary after having exhausted his second, and maybe third, winds. He's staying awake for one reason: his mother told him to go to sleep. We Americans are rebellious and independent from the start. We want things our own way, and we want to feel like we have an influence over our lives, from the smallest decisions to the biggest. It's a nice feeling to be empowered. The little boy is just discovering his independence. He doesn't have to go to bed just because his mother told him to. He has the right and ability to defy. We all appreciate that right and ability. It's one of the biggest pieces of the "American Spirit." Each year, millions of Americans celebrate Independence Day by lying to salesmen and proceeding to break minor laws about firework control repeatedly in back yards, streets, and parks around the country. 

Eventually though, after weeks or years of sharpening his skills of defiance, the boy's mother stops forcing the issue, or the rebellion loses its fun, and the boy goes to bed at a reasonable hour without prodding. He's given the false sense that he's won the war and set his own bed time, but the fact is that it's a product of a daily conditioning that's been going on since he was born. We sleep at night, and wake up in the morning to go to school or work or whatever else we do. The same boy that threw a fit at age eight when his mother suggested he sleep when he was tired will be begging for a bed on a Saturday morning with he's sixteen. But it will be on his terms (or so he'll think). 

That's what scares me with these recent situations with Bank of America and Verizon. It's a lot easier to accept potentially negative consequences when you think you've got the power to change them or that it was your power that created them. Sure, I'm glad to not have to pay a convenience fee every time I pay my phone bill online for the time being, but I'm also extremely concerned about what exactly I'm being set up and conditioned for.