Sorry, we’re open.

The story hit all the major news outlets yesterday morning that Verizon was planning to charge their customers a two dollar fee for paying their bill directly to Verizon on their website.  They were going to bill us for billing us.

I’ve plied this theme in other writings, calling it the “Sorry, we’re open,” syndrome.  We all know the “Sorry, we’re open” businesses.  They punish you for bringing your business to them.  We do business with them on their terms, not ours.  With these companies, it isn’t, “the customer is always right.”  It’s, the customer is an imposition that we unfortunately have to put up with.

Well, the days of being able to get away with that may be running out.  By the end of the day yesterday, in response to a national outcry against the punitive customer fee, Verizon rescinded the policy before it took effect on January 15th.

Verizon hadn’t discovered that the policy actually was unfair, nor did it determine that it wasn’t in their economic interests–until–they saw the tidal wave.  It was nothing less than an internet uprising via social media that turned the tide against Verizon, the same social media that sparked the Arab Spring that has overthrown dictators in the Middle East this past year.

The social media is now changing the course of history every day.  In the past, public opinion could be put on hold until election days, slowed down by bureaucratic red tape, or muffled by the snail’s pace of communications.  No more.  A national referendum can happen overnight, forcing change when the weight of public opinion is able to turn on a dime.

Where will it focus next? Will it be on another so-called “fleecing of America” that takes place every day in our living rooms and in our bedrooms?  It is called, “Paid Programming,” and it has so far escaped the scrutiny of social media.

No one receives Dish, Dircect TV or cable television for free.  It’s a cost we’ve co-opted because we’ve elevated its importance to the level of household necessity.  The trouble is, in “off-peak” hours, the air time we’ve purchased has been sold again to advertisers who want to reach us where we live. The service provider has now sold its air time twice, once to its subscribers, and once to those who want advertising dibs on those subscribers.

It would be something like hearing from your car dealer after you bought your car, that they’ve also sold it to somebody else, but not to worry–they’ll only be using it overnight and early in the morning. This might be just the sort of thing that we decide, en masse, not to put up with any more.

Who could’ve seen this coming?  As a means of marshalling the strength of numbers to right essential wrongs, the social media has yet to realize its own strength.  When “Power to the People” was shouted by throngs of protesters in the 1960’s, no one thought it could happen this way.

Happy New Year everyone, and Power to the People!