1. The agreement was free first year, $50 each for 2nd and 3rd years at which point you owned the machine outright.
2. You agreed to use the slow, cruddy but FREE isp a minimum of 10 hours per month for those three years. In that time they filled half your screen with scads of adverts, monitored your browsing, steered you to their preferred sites (search, info, shopping) and owned all the data they could mine from you.
3. You agreed to answer periodic email surveys. I never got a one.
4. If you defaulted on any of the above, after two monthly warnings, they'd demand the box back and then charge you some obscene penalty if you refused to surrender it. This was right after the original i-o fiasco, so the strategy was a TOS that would thwart hackers.
I was SO sure that this crapulous business plan would fail that I signed up the moment I heard about it. Figured at the very least, I'd end up owning a hackerbox after 35 months for a mere $100. And, if my surmise was right, I'd pay less and own it a lot sooner.
I also figured that they'd be lots of leftover boxes when the plan went belly-up and I was right there too. Thanks to the heroic Jake, 400 leftover/refurbed boxen have been rescued from the Boundless warehouse and are in the hands of UPS, on their way to the patient and plucky members of the coop. All hail Jake, the founder of our feast!
I would guess that between coop members who ordered too many and those who just lose interest, there'll be a decent number of WebPlayers entering the stream of commerce over the next few months. | |
