Brief Rant About Corporations

I'm not gonna belabor this, but I'm pissed off. I just signed up with MTV.com so that I could comment on one of their articles and their system is fucked up and won't even give me a sign-in page when I click on "sign-in."

So, like a good netizen, I went to look for their contact page (hah!) to let them know about the problem, and only found some "suggestions" and "feedback" forums where you can't even find a place to post a comment. Presumably, if their system were working correctly, you'd have to sign in to participate, but, of course, their system is fucked up, so I couldn't sign in. Fine, but can't you have an email address somewhere in case everything goes down?

What boggles me is that they don't seem to want to know when their shit isn't working. They're so damned concerned with protecting themselves from the people they're supposed to be serving, that they forgot to serve us.

I don't really care that much about MTV, but this is kind of a last straw. This happens a lot with services and products that are somewhat, or very, essential to me ... not just on a lifestyle level, but also on a basic survival level, like food or medicine.

I think it's that the people who run the companies don't understand the internet and are frightened by the quickness and volume of communication on the internet. They don't seem to realize that websites are ABOUT communication. If you can't use a company's website to communicate without clicking through for half an hour or selling your firstborn, then no one's gonna communicate with you, mofo, you're gonna lose touch with your customer base, and then they'll be primed to be stolen away by a company that DOES understand the internet.

But of course, all the companies are doing this now, so it's just considered standard practice. The company that's easier to communicate with has to deal with a higher volume of email--HIRE people to deal with a higher volume of email--so maybe they think it's a competitive disadvantage.

And it IS a disadvantage if: 1) you don't DO anything with the information you gather that way and 2) you're dealing with a consumer base that's been trained not to mind that companies providing them with their food, medicine, and lifestyles are impenetrable monoliths. Which is the case with kids these days.

I really think it's time that consumers got more proactive and started boycotting companies that put too many layers of communication between themselves and their customers. Because if the customer isn't always right, then you don't get the customer's money, asshole.

Who's with me? What should we do?