From ‘Fair and foul’, 14 May 2010 ST Forum
While $70 is a big increase from what we paid for the last edition(FIFA World Cup), four years makes a difference. The money one paid for a plate of chicken rice in 2006 will not buy the meal now.
Hence, I do not understand the complaints, especially by netizens, that subscribers are being made to pay too much. While Indonesia may be screening the matches for free, would we want to live there, on Indonesian wages?
If fans feel that $70 is too much to pay for subscription, then they should skip the World Cup altogether.
Unless you’re talking about comparing kopitiam vs Chatterbox chicken rice, what’s with this using hawker food fare to justify price hikes for entirely different things altogether? World Cup broadcasting is a monopoly, chicken rice isn’t, and I doubt chicken rice prices in 2006 were anywhere below $2.50 a plate and you can still get that kind of price today or less if you know where to look. Another disconnected argument is relating free broadcasting in Indonesia, with a population so vast they could make a greater fortune than our telcos by just charging people 7 cents instead of $70, to whether the people could afford it. The fact of the matter is that Indonesia is not as well off as us, yet still manages to secure free programming. If anything, it speaks volume of the disparity in consumer welfare between the two neighbours. Also, telling a World Cup fan to skip the event altogether is like telling a glue sniffer to stop making paper-mache.
Filed under: 2010, Complaining, Corporations, Local food, Money, Sports | Tagged: cable, chicken rice, FIFA World Cup, Singtel, Starhub, subscription, telcos | Leave a Comment »
