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It wasn't sexist - I very much meant you and one or two other boys in particular. Who appear to pounce on anything I say and try to stir an argument, no matter how wrong they are and how desperate their line of thought ends up becoming. I'm probably being too hard on you, you genuinely just have strong opinion on this issue I think - but search through my post history and you'll see what I'm talking about...I suppose I could reply to your sexist comment and say you're too thick to realise that conversations can evolve within forum threads, but I think I'll refrain from stooping to your level.In reply to a post by vimto_girl:Why are so many boys on this forum so thick? What is this whole thread about?
Anyway, let's follow your line of thought through. An ISP who insist on you buying their new router before they offer support - arent they also holding their customers to ransom, and at the worst possible time? How are they better than Sky?
Read my other post again. And see why letting people opt for non-Sky routers harms Sky profits in ways many times worse than anything they gain from equipment profit.
Without the guaranteed sales and re-sales, the router would be more costly to Sky and consumer alike. Sky shift these out for free with new contracts all the time, it saves them £lots.
Without them, the brand identity and image so carefully built up gets gradually eroded as people opt for other routers.
Without them, the average person will run into all kinds of setup problems and generate more traffic to support, which means more £cost. It also means reputation, brand identity and image of switch-it-on-and-it-works is eroded - Sky work so hard at maintaining this because they are not dumb, they know what this achieves. (And read my post - its not easy to buy, choose and setup your own equipment for ADSL these days, even for people who would consider themselves quite adept.)
Sky want to provide good support, keep up an image and reputation of "everything just works and is easily fixed with a phone call", and not generate call traffic and complaints and the reputation that they wont help. If that is different from other ISPs, so be it. But it recoups them £millions in other ways. Or if you want to look at it your way, generates them £millions. The customer and Sky benefit from a support system that works well. You asked what the benefit was. Here it is. Do not underestimate the power of things like brand, image and Uncle Bob and Aunt Minnie.
You can keep on thinking this is all about profits from a router sale. But you've kind of missed the point. And missing the point has made you angry thinking that the customer is being ripped off. But they're not. It's a good router at a great price, there's nothing to complain about.