Post by nictoe on Apr 28, 2023 12:17:24 GMT -8
The Ugly World of Add-On Fees for Everything
Joe Queenan
April 28, 2023
I couldn’t watch the lowly Colorado Rockies get smacked around by my Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday; I forgot that the TV broadcast was only on Peacock. Though my subscription to Major League Baseball’s streaming service allows me to watch almost every Phillies game from my home in New York, this one required $4.95 for a monthly Peacock subscription, even if you had local TV in Philadelphia.
It’s not only Peacock, which has a bunch of Sunday games reserved. There are also games that only appear on Amazon or Apple TV+ or YouTube TV.
Worse, these broadcasts generally use announcers who don’t normally cover your teams. This ruins everything. Fans form lifelong relationships with local announcers. In some towns, they put up statues to these guys. But you can’t have a relationship with someone who only does two or three games a year. And mispronounces the closer’s name. And doesn’t know that the fans hate the first baseman. And doesn’t know that the fans hate him.
I’m now dreading the thought that other businesses will institute this kind of maddeningly illogical policy—charging premiums on certain days for inferior products. Because here’s how it could look:
You go to the diner on Sunday morning, all set for your usual heaping pile of flapjacks with sausage and home fries—and it turns out that on certain Sundays, unless you pay a $4.95 supplement, you can only get oatmeal or a corn muffin. And even if you pay extra, the effervescent waitress you love to banter with has been furloughed for the day, replaced by a dour, hatchet-faced man with no bantering skills.
Or: Planning on some relaxing trout fishing this weekend? Sorry, the river is closed to non-subscribers every third Saturday. So are the brooks and rivulets. You’ll just have to pay a one-time charge—and settle for a creek.
At nursery school drop-off, you find out that your kids can’t play with the stuffed pig on Tuesdays unless you fork over $4.95 for the Stuffed Pig Supplement. What do you mean, you didn’t know? Didn’t you read the fine print in the school’s Mission Statement?
Bruce Springsteen won’t play “Born to Run” tonight because it’s in the key of E-major, which costs extra at Friday concerts—plus the saxophone solo will be played on the kazoo. Without receiving a supplement, Taylor Swift is not doing any breakup songs tonight. And the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has blacked out anything by Beethoven on the first of the month. Unless you pony up extra, you’ll have to settle for Sibelius. That big upfront fee you paid for the privilege of buying a ticket? No, it doesn’t cover that.
Surprise add-ons could also apply to air travel. (Besides the extra fees we’re already paying for having bags—or having seats.) On Supplement Sunday, you learn after takeoff, your plane won’t land in Dallas or Houston unless you pay extra; otherwise you’ll just have to make do with Lubbock.
Car travel isn’t exempt either. You want gas in the middle of the night while driving across Death Valley? Fine, but it’s subscription-only on Saturday nights at the highway rest stop. Hope you have enough fuel to make it to the station 30 miles down that dirt road. Diesel only, by the way.
We’d even need to pay more attention to medical checkups. Didn’t you realize that no one can check your kidney function or give you an EKG on the third Thursday of the month? You didn’t get the text about a supplement to see your regular proctologist instead of a physician’s assistant?
Same deal at the dentist. Do you seriously want to risk getting that root canal done by the trainee endodontist? Nope, didn’t think so. That’ll be an extra $4.95, please.