Consumer complaint power and the Internet, or "Don't get mad, get even... and then some"

So it's probably obvious by now that I'm a little more than slightly pissed off at DishTV for delivering me a service some 3 weeks later than promised and then cutting me off from it less than 1 hour after finally getting it. Oh, yes, and for constantly promising to fix it without actually doing so. That too.

I can complain all I want to the care personnel, but those people are just earning a pittance listening to people yelling at them so I'm not too hard on them - I can't help but laugh when they again promise me what their workflow system tells them to promise - I'd bet knowing full well that the problem will still be there tomorrow.

Blogs like this are actually suprisingly effective for getting back at companies who treat their customers like crap. Consider this post of mine from 2008. Google Analytics tells me that 908 separate people have viewed the rant 1059 times since I posted it. If I managed to convince even 50% of those people to buy something else the companies I complained about lost over 25k€ / $35k in sales, some 150 times more than I lost buying their crappy products. And counting. People find the post through google searches and it still gets a steady 30-50 pageviews per month - I've cut my losses a long time ago, but they aren't done with theirs.