Every time I hear the term "protection plan", my mind jumps to store owners being shaken down by the mafia. I picture some muscular Italian guy saying "You wouldn't want something to happen to that there satellite dish, would ya?". Even the cable company was trying to get into the act when last I had cable television -- though most of their service calls were free even if you didn't have the plan, it just covered the sort of things that were really unlikely to happen.
These are the sort of things Dish Network has gotten away with because it has traditionally kept it's core prices low and gone after "low market" folks who either can't afford the competition, could really use to save the money, or are kind of thrifty by nature. So, when the storm knocks out the signal and it takes 5 minutes for the thing to reacquire the signal or there's a carriage dispute and a channel is lost or Dish wanted to charge $95 for a tech visit that should be free (You pay for the service, if the service stops working, you expect it to be fixed without paying any extra, because if it's not Dish isn't delivering what you're paying for), people grumbled a little and ultimately said "It's all I can afford monthly (or I need to save the money)" and put up with it.
Now Dish Network is raising it's prices and trying to target people who are willing or able to pay more on a monthly basis. But guess what? Those are the sort of customers who are not going to put up with stuff that inconveniences them. The reason those people aren't with Dish in the first place is because they were willing to pay more to not experience a storm knocking out their signal and not experience not having access to channels they like and to experience having techs come out free and so on and so forth. They're the type of people who won't stand for a hassle because they don't have to. If Dish wants those customers and their fatter wallets paying more month to month, they're going to need to provide a more consistent service with better channel selection and stop nickling and diming people for things that should be free.
It's just like when you go to McDonalds, you walk up to the counter and then go to an uncomfortable table and don't expect much because it's cheap. If you go to a 5-star restaurant, you expect 5-star food and 5-star service, and no hassles.
I for one though will continue to pay the $6 per month. I spend far more than that each month on more silly things, and having had already used it to replace 3 722s I think I'm going to stay ahead of the game for awhile yet.
