It has nothing to do with being friendly or not, we are very friendly, it has everything to do with the cost of running the business. The labor rate hasn't changed in over 15 years (set by Dish network) still the same $69/hour it has been since the 90's. About 10 years ago (and things are more expensive now of course) my boss did a cost analysis on what it costs to roll a truck to a job. Just to get to the door, nothing more, is about $35 - $40. That doesn't include wages for the tech or any parts. If you figure about $30 for the tech (which actually costs the business about $40) that leaves very little profit margin to keep the lights on. We lose money when we roll on svc calls for our customers (we charge them $69), we certainly are not going to do that for someone who bought from our competition.
A lot of people think it is all one big happy family all sharing in the profits. That couldn't be farther from the truth. If you didn't come into our office or call our phone number that rings our office, you bought it from our competition and we didn't make a penny. So often people will see some flyer from some telemarketer and order their system from them, then when they need help, the telemarketer won't give them the time of day, so they walk into our shop expecting us to help them for free, because there is a "Dish" sign in our front yard. You can actually see steam come out of my bosses (the owner) ears every time this happens. We do every thing we can to try to get people to buy local and support a local business (and get good local support in the deal), they only find out what we were talking about after it is too late... (sorry, I know that was a bit of a tangent).
Compared to so many other svc industries, $99 is cheap. See if you can get a plumber or electrician (etc.) out for that much. The TV industry is weird, people think because they pay money every month for the programming, every thing else should be free. That is like saying, "I spend $200/month on gas, you should fix my car for free".
Anyway, $99 is not a ridiculous amount charged by companies trying to gouge you, (as a small local business) it is what we have to charge to be here for you.