I'm doing my part, sitting here with two broadband providers "just in case".
One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
151–160 of 528 posts
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#152And 3 million depend on food banks. Things are getting tough for lots of people and that's with extremely high levels of employment. Not sure this will go well if there is a recession that causes the jobless rate to increase.
Don’t worry, everyone is suffering - we’re all in this together… For example we’re set to have the highest private jet sales on record this year https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/01/private-jet-sa... Almost as if COVID caused a huge redistribution of money from the poor to the wealthy.
All by design. Kill all small businesses by shutting them down, and get purchased by giant megacorps when they're worth nothing.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#153Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn't believe it.
I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopping. I couldn't believe it, so he pulled up his pay stub on his phone and showed me.
Family members out here who are working non-tech regular jobs are telling me they had to cut back on turning on their heating at night during the winter. I grew up in Canada, and lived seven years in Los Angeles, but now live in Asia. I don't know how the UK is going to get back to where it was 10ish years ago.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recently had to look at the property market again and the rents have increased significantly, in addition to the usual high cost of living increase and inflation/shrinkflation which doesn't show any signs of slowing down. I very much wonder how they expect "normal" people to survive. It looks like you need to fall quite far into the highest tax brackets just to be able to rent something decent in London, and buying i…
My girlfriend rents relatively centrally in London, and her rent has gone up ~40%. I have no idea how people on average salaries - even average London salaries - can afford to stay much longer.
On the other hand, housing occupancy rates are still high, arguably too high, despite the high cost of housing.
For whatever reason, people deem it worth it to pay such high rents to remain living in London. London's population is still growing, albeit slower than before the pandemic.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other than london and a couple of other cities, most of the country was already ranked as most deprived in Europe. Throw in Brexit, cost of living and most normal people are fucked. I'm a lecturer (5 yrs) and I'm struggling to pay my bills. We've been out on strike and nothing happened. NHS is struggling. Pay rises are around 0% for most people I know. Food inflation is around 16%. Foodbanks are struggling to feed fa…
> I'm a lecturer (5 yrs) and I'm struggling to pay my bills. We've been out on strike and nothing happened Why would not working result in higher pay? Especially in a field where the product is increasingly seen as a luxury that costs as much as a downpayment for a house and ultimately not a essential requirement for employment.
Striking provides a forcing function to reveal the actual value to the employer of your labor.
In certain fields (e.g. medicine, academics) there are huge centers that represent the majority of jobs for a region. Specialized workers here find it harder to job hop, as there are fewer opportunities.
Striking provides another means to better pay. Say you value my work at $40/hr, but are currently paying my at $20/hr. In domains where employees don't have much recourse to just go find another employer, strikes provide a good mechanism to call the bluff of an employer. If they really only value your work at $20/hr, they'll not be willing to pay any more. If they do value it more highly, striking makes it so they have to choose between making concessions or losing work they value.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I pay Three £7.32/month for 12GB. Because I'm near wifi most of the time, I only actually use about 1GB of it per month
And how much do you pay for your landline wifi?
More than most in the UK. I pay £45/month with https://www.aa.net.uk/ for a more professional service than you'd get with the big providers. Comes with a /29, a /48, the ability to get real-time tech support from actual techies via IRC. I work from home so need a reliable connection.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is the latency for these 5G home internet services?
Over 100ms most of the time, it worked fine for WFH when I had meetings. Terrible if you want to game.
This is interesting since I remember having much lower latency for 3G, perhaps < 50 ms, about 10 years ago. :) At that time, some of my friends were even using the home 3G to play games.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#158Seems like counterintuitive but then again the article does not mention cellphones which is quite enough for many people.
Even 10 years ago I knew people cancelling their broadband to just use mobile internet. It's smart to cancel broadband if you're not streaming video, or if you are streaming but have a fast mobile network connection and decent plan. It probably sucks for any real-time stuff like gaming, but otherwise it makes sense. I don't doubt many people would rather cancel broadband than turn their boiler off.
I'd seriously consider it if not for working from home. Other than that, all we really use our home broadband for that I couldn't do with my phone is streaming—and you can buy/rent quite a few discs per month for the cost of broadband plus streaming services.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recently had to look at the property market again and the rents have increased significantly, in addition to the usual high cost of living increase and inflation/shrinkflation which doesn't show any signs of slowing down. I very much wonder how they expect "normal" people to survive. It looks like you need to fall quite far into the highest tax brackets just to be able to rent something decent in London, and buying i…
> There is no reason to pay the money I am paying here if I can get better food, climate and general quality of life for the same (or even less!) money elsewhere in Europe Sure. And you should probably do that. But then a lot of other people are of the opinion that they can ignore food and weather and come to Britain. Net migration numbers in recent decades have not gone in favour of your line of thinking? UK high st…
> Sure. And you should probably do that. But then a lot of other people are of the opinion that they can ignore food and weather and come to Britain. Net migration numbers in recent decades have not gone in favour of your line of thinking?
Some of them are pretty surprised at the state of things when they get here. There was a report in the BBC that a lot of Ukrainian refugees find the education system and housing conditions an absolute joke compared to what they had back home.