Here are portions a couple of notes I have emailed to ceo@echostar.com that explain why I think their tactics aren't so honest, and I suggested collusion.
What do you think?
As an "upgrade" offer, Echostar is offering $200 for receivers that individuals paid $1000, and $699 for in the past two years. We expect attrition in value when new MPEG-4 receivers roll out, as they will not be able to receive future channels. However, they are still as useful as they have been in the past, receiving MPEG-2 HD content. Echostar has artificially set the used price of these older receivers to $200. How? As of February 1, Echostar prevents its customers from selling the old receiver because Echostar won't allow a buyer to activate a used or new 942/921/811/6000 for MPEG-2 HD programming, something that Echostar produces and the receiver is fully capable of receiving. Then Echostar takes the artificially and prematurely defunct receiver and makes a profit off of the customer's DVR at the artificially low price by selling it to the Canadian customer for Express VU.
EBay has a market that can naturally determine the price of new and used equipment. Echostar's tactics artificially manipulate the free market value to Echostar's advantage, and at the expense of its own customers. I think what you are doing is illegal. If for some reason it is legal, it certainly is morally bankrupt, and does not engender good faith or even an iota of trust with its customers.
In all honesty, the $200 rebate is lesser in value than it appears. It only is offered as a mail in rebate to those who trade in their OWNED equipment towards Echostar's leased equipment, while entering the customer into a two year commitment of Echostar's terms.
If the person already has HD programming, that individual can activate their 942/921/811 for HD programming, because you don't have the facility to deny it to them. You are discriminating here, under some circumstances, people can still activate their 942 and watch HD programming, in other circumstances they can't.
Echostar is in the business of making money. Why refuse to let people subscribe to your programming when you can make money doing it and they are willing to pay for it??
The new programming isn't MPEG-4 in the first place! We already know that the new "MPEG-4" programming is really an MPEG-2 bitstream and the only thing that changed is the MPEG-4 header. In other words, all existing equipment can still view the new channels.
If you don't even have real MPEG-4 encoded material, why do you insist on restricting people using equipment that they worked very hard to pay for! The 942 and 921 were not cheap to buy, and we don't want to see the value of our investment go to nothing after less than a year for the case of 942 owners!
What do you think? They are migrating as many people as they can to a new technology by artificially fixing the price of a free, used market that is supposed to be outside Echostar's control. They make a profit out of our paintful migration. And to top it off, the bottom line is that the MPEG-4 encoding that they are trying to migrate us to doesn't even exist! The whole thing is a farse.
What do you think?
As an "upgrade" offer, Echostar is offering $200 for receivers that individuals paid $1000, and $699 for in the past two years. We expect attrition in value when new MPEG-4 receivers roll out, as they will not be able to receive future channels. However, they are still as useful as they have been in the past, receiving MPEG-2 HD content. Echostar has artificially set the used price of these older receivers to $200. How? As of February 1, Echostar prevents its customers from selling the old receiver because Echostar won't allow a buyer to activate a used or new 942/921/811/6000 for MPEG-2 HD programming, something that Echostar produces and the receiver is fully capable of receiving. Then Echostar takes the artificially and prematurely defunct receiver and makes a profit off of the customer's DVR at the artificially low price by selling it to the Canadian customer for Express VU.
EBay has a market that can naturally determine the price of new and used equipment. Echostar's tactics artificially manipulate the free market value to Echostar's advantage, and at the expense of its own customers. I think what you are doing is illegal. If for some reason it is legal, it certainly is morally bankrupt, and does not engender good faith or even an iota of trust with its customers.
In all honesty, the $200 rebate is lesser in value than it appears. It only is offered as a mail in rebate to those who trade in their OWNED equipment towards Echostar's leased equipment, while entering the customer into a two year commitment of Echostar's terms.
If the person already has HD programming, that individual can activate their 942/921/811 for HD programming, because you don't have the facility to deny it to them. You are discriminating here, under some circumstances, people can still activate their 942 and watch HD programming, in other circumstances they can't.
Echostar is in the business of making money. Why refuse to let people subscribe to your programming when you can make money doing it and they are willing to pay for it??
The new programming isn't MPEG-4 in the first place! We already know that the new "MPEG-4" programming is really an MPEG-2 bitstream and the only thing that changed is the MPEG-4 header. In other words, all existing equipment can still view the new channels.
If you don't even have real MPEG-4 encoded material, why do you insist on restricting people using equipment that they worked very hard to pay for! The 942 and 921 were not cheap to buy, and we don't want to see the value of our investment go to nothing after less than a year for the case of 942 owners!
What do you think? They are migrating as many people as they can to a new technology by artificially fixing the price of a free, used market that is supposed to be outside Echostar's control. They make a profit out of our paintful migration. And to top it off, the bottom line is that the MPEG-4 encoding that they are trying to migrate us to doesn't even exist! The whole thing is a farse.
