They'll collect your cookies and profile you, and sell the profile out the back door. Yahoo Broadband is doing a deal with Southwestern Bell: formerly Sow Bell DSL was a standalone, and now they've wrapped a Yahoo Broadband wrapper around it. So it functions like AOL, in that you're surfing Yahoo, not the Net. And they are with you every step of the way, collecting precious information about you. SW Bell has been running creepy ads to the effect that, with Yahoo Broadband, "they log onto you." Yeah, right -- I double-plus bellyfeel broadband.
One day I was on a 100 MHz computer and a 28.8k modem, the next day I was running at 1.8 GHz on a 12mbps BB account.
I'm still on dialup. Lousy SowBell-engineered, nailed-up 26.4K Baud on a circuit that I've since found out has been uprated to provide aDSL to my neighbors -- so why am I not getting the full 53KBaud? Wouldn't be that Sow is holding my head under water, waiting for me to crack and fleet up from $5.55 local measured service telephone (+ $9.95/month for dialup access to my ISP) to their $45/month aDSL service?
I've looked into ISDN, Sprint satellite service (no can do -- trees), DSL, and RoadRunner. I have the sinking feeling that broadband is like cable TV 40 years ago. If you're old enough, you'll remember the original promise of cable: good signal, good service, and NO ADS for only $6/month! (In 1965 dollars.) Now look at it.
No, I don't want to feed a monster, so I don't want the Baby Bells or AT&T or MCI/Worldcom to have my business, nor the Mouse, nor TIME/Warner AOL, who own RoadRunner. Warner Cable owns a monopoly here in west Houston (carefully arranged by thieving local politicians, who wrote laws to create turnstiles for themselves, which they sold to the big cable companies), so why should I feed a monopoly? And Sow Bell has already raised underlying DSL rates once -- they are charging the other DSL providers now what they were charging the public two years ago.
So I'll wait for the arrival of BPL, which is already being offered in places for $30/month. And go with the smallest, most-innocuous outfit I can find that isn't likely to turn into a swollen, oligopolistic monster specializing in bad service, gratuituous charges, and asymptotically rising rates.
I have never had more fun with my clothes on than this!
Well, just hang loose -- your broadband provider will be around with a jar of lubricant in just a little while.