Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 528 posts

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#341

Post by badpun »

Applejinx wrote: post #109
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK was already creaking at the seems in the 2000's. I left in 2011 and have spent the last 5 years crawling up a sewer pipe of regulations trying to get my post brexit immigration sorted. Brexit was just a fantasy of better days to come that was actually pretext for a right wing power grab. And what do right wingers ultimately want? A world of red in tooth and claw capitalism with themselves as the permanent winners,…

Harsh but fair. It's not significantly different in the US. You know, it's not different in ANY of the empires, past or present. Look at Russia and it's just a couple decades of further decline, but the same thing. If hackers and nerd idealists are worth anything, it's for trying to solve all this against a background of constant push-back. I sometimes wonder if the most important thing I could possibly do is try to…

> You know, it's not different in ANY of the empires, past or present. Look at Russia and it's just a couple decades of further decline, but the same thing.

I very seriously doubt that US or even the UK will look like Russia in a couple decades. Russia was historically a backwards agricultural country, that went through breakneck centrally-planned industrialization during the Soviet era, which ultimately collapsed under its own mismanagement, corruption and stupidity. Now they're just playing in the rubbles, getting most of their money from selling vast Siberian mineral riches. Whereas US/UK for the past 200 years have been at the forefront of enlightenment, industrialization, innovation, scientific discoveries, creation of complex and extremely well performing businesses etc. All that is constitutes an enormous capital that can't be just pissed away in a couple decades.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#342

Post by jandrewrogers »

gavin_gee wrote: post #223
gavin_gee wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My unscientific burger comparison I think calls BS on the UK prices. Everywhere is expensive now. The problem with the UK is Brexit and a country that went from being very supportive to small business and entrepreneurs to a high tax wasteland of averageness. The UK is the deepest into its decline of any western empire. They are shuffling deck chairs on the titanic. the coronation was the canary for living in the past…

what I dont think brits really understand about US food prices in restaurants though in recent years in places like seattle is there is a 40% tax on the prices on the menu. sales tax 10% Living wage tax 10% 20%+ tip expectation Everyone I talk to from earning $80K a year to $1M a year are not eating out as much as its absurdly expensive. Just this week. 2 people. dinner at a reasonable seattle restuarant on a tuesday…

That is anomalously expensive for Seattle. I eat out several times a week at nice restaurants and the bill for two virtually never exceeds $200.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#343

Post by omginternets »

mdasen wrote: post #179
omginternets wrote: post #117

Just yesterday I was trying to sign up with Verizon for my new address. Fiber is not available in my building, so they offer "5G Home Internet" for $60-$80/mo, which is crazy expensive for what it is. I asked whether there were ADSL lines available, since these were recently available for as cheap as $15/mo. It seems this is no longer the case. Maybe there's a market here? EDIT: I am in the US, and I've just realized…

I'm surprised they're quoting you $60-80/mo. Verizon's 5G home internet is $50/mo (or $25/mo bundled with one of their premium wireless plans or $40/mo bundled with Visible's $35/mo Visible+ wireless plan). Why would you want DSL? In my area, Verizon's DSL is 3.1Mbps which really isn't good for much and costs $75/mo ($40 for the DSL and $35 for the required home phone service with it). You also have to pay $3.50/mo f…

>$25/mo bundled with one of their premium wireless plans

I mean, this contributes to my point: it's only "cheap" if you buy into their plan and also upgrade your phone. For a variety of reasons, this isn't a good fit for me, and I'm beginning to suspect there might be a small-but-respectable market of others who resemble me.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#344

Post by omginternets »

schwoll wrote: post #307
omginternets wrote: post #117

Just yesterday I was trying to sign up with Verizon for my new address. Fiber is not available in my building, so they offer "5G Home Internet" for $60-$80/mo, which is crazy expensive for what it is. I asked whether there were ADSL lines available, since these were recently available for as cheap as $15/mo. It seems this is no longer the case. Maybe there's a market here? EDIT: I am in the US, and I've just realized…

Ask them for a landline phone. They'll either have to run new copper or choose to install fiber. Once they run copper then get a DSL company to run through that. Generally they won't want to run copper and don't want competition so they'll go ahead and run fiber. In either case I believe the law they're constrained by is local ordinances giving them a region based monopoly for traditional landline access in exchange…

This sounds like great advice! I'll do this first thing tomorrow. Thank you!

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#345

Post by zamnos »

wskinner wrote: post #207
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Five Guys is absolutely atypical and has always been very expensive. A burger and a soft drink in a Wetherspoons (love them or loathe them) will be between £5 and £7 depending on the burger. > he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this That's the higher rate for those who earn the most and, again, atypical. https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates

The top marginal rate of 45% in the UK starts at £125,140. Compare that to the US, where the top marginal rate of 37% starts at $578,125. - Edited to correct incorrect US top rate.

California's state income tax is 12.3% starting at $677,276, so the top rate is 49.3%, and actually surpasses 50% once other taxes are taken into account, and then you have to factor in healthcare costs on top of that. Which as you get older and later into your career (which is when you'd make that much money anyway) can't be ignored either.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#346

Post by dukeyukey »

dragonwriter wrote: post #336
dukeyukey wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And there is also a 20% VAT impacting the cost of pretty much anything you might use your after-tax income to Except stuff like food, rent, utilities, small stuff like that. I'll give you the rest though. The UK is a low-tax country by European standards, and even by developed-world standards, but is above the US quite significantly.

> The UK is a low-tax country by European standards, and even by developed-world standards, The UK is a bit above average tax burden as share of GDP for the OECD. It is not particularly “low tax by developed world standards”.

The OECD includes countries like Mexico, Turkey, and Colombia that are definitely less developed than the rest of the list. Hell, looking at the IMF figures, half the European countries on that list count as "developing" too, especially the less-taxing ones. Don't think I agree with them, but I'm not an economist so hey.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#347

Post by [deleted] »

anoonmoose wrote: post #203
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Five Guys is absolutely atypical and has always been very expensive. A burger and a soft drink in a Wetherspoons (love them or loathe them) will be between £5 and £7 depending on the burger. > he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this That's the higher rate for those who earn the most and, again, atypical. https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates

Yup, using your link and this one [1] it would not be unreasonable to estimate that his friend is in the 98% or 99% percentile of earners in the UK. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-f...

[deleted]

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#348

Post by bambataa »

StringyBob wrote: post #23
0xDEF wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The uncompetitiveness of Britain has been obvious for decades. For a highly developed English-speaking country it is very underrepresented in software tech. Britain should unironically learn to code.

> For a highly developed English-speaking country it is very underrepresented in software tech. We’re here quietly - all working for American / multi-national companies. Just little of the Silicon Valley startup culture here in the UK.

The best thing you can do as a British tech worker is not work for a British tech company.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#349

Post by azornathogron »

wskinner wrote: post #207
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Five Guys is absolutely atypical and has always been very expensive. A burger and a soft drink in a Wetherspoons (love them or loathe them) will be between £5 and £7 depending on the burger. > he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this That's the higher rate for those who earn the most and, again, atypical. https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates

The top marginal rate of 45% in the UK starts at £125,140. Compare that to the US, where the top marginal rate of 37% starts at $578,125. - Edited to correct incorrect US top rate.

Speaking as a pedant: The top marginal rate is actually 60% and happens when you cross the threshold where you're nominally in the 40% band but you're also losing your personal allowance. The effect is, for every £2 extra income you lose £1 personal allowance (exposing an extra £1 to taxation) and pay 40p tax on that. That's 20% in addition to the 40% you're paying anyway, hence 60% marginal rate. Once you hit the income level where all your personal allowance has been fully cancelled out, then your marginal rate drops back down. And then the next threshold after that puts you in the 45% band.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#350

Post by MarkusWandel »

This applies to where I live in Canada. The price skew may be even greater elsewhere. Good residential broadband now costs in the neighbourhood of $60/month; this will be essentially unlimited, to the point of being able to leave a 4K video stream playing as background entertainment.

Good cellular service costs in the neighbourhood of $40/month and the amount of data you can use is going up gradually; currently I see 20-25GB advertised. That's plenty for "needed" internet access - not the leave video running part - and if you need your laptop online you can just tether it to your phone.

So it's perfectly rational, if short on cash, to get rid of the home broadband. Can't get rid of the cell phone anyway since you've likely gotten rid of your landline phone already.

Post reply on HN