How Brazil could finally put an end to widespread cable piracy

It's hard to feel sorry for cable companies. [2]

Actually, not saying financing crime is good or better than our conditions, it should be avoided at all cost, but they deserved it. I am from Rio de Janeiro, and despite being from an intellectually elite, socioeconomically worker class family (yes, in Brazil, studying in a good, hard University and doing well, better than the children of the economical elite, is no guarantee of being decently paid, or even of a stable job), Cartoon Network was often the joy of my childhood in a violent urban place when I had access to it. I am doing conscription this year, but the first time where it is mandatory for me to vote will be 2014, when I will be 19.

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10 years ago, the monthly price of cable TV was more than double of the minimal wage (about 350-600 reais, relatively cheap nowadays but a REALLY BIG LOT of money at the time), so that people living in a Brazilian favela in the more compact inner cities wouldn't never afford it. But there's no one of the middle class in the inner cities of Rio de Janeiro (Center, South Zone and the Atlantic seashore of the West Zone i.e. Barra) and São Paulo (Center, and the parts of the North and West Zones closer to it), only the rich and the machine's excluded.

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We from the middle class live in the closer suburbs (North and Southwest Zones of Rio, Niterói city), and some islands of wealth in the violent and poor distant suburbs where I never ever saw foreign tourists because where I live is the crap part of my city, full of dengue, bad sanitation, only rotten vegetables and fruits in the markets, no decent restaurants, clubs or bars, no decent streets, public transit, hospitals or public schools, and ugly fundamentalist Christian people (Northwest Zone of Rio, other cities in metropolitan area, 15+Rio+Nit, such as the here mentioned Baixada Fluminense, including 7-9 of them; incredibly it, just 50 km from the Center of Rio, was way worse before Lula), and there was ABSOLUTELY NONE affordable (cheaper than 450 reais) cable here before 2012. Do you know how much is our minimal wage now? About 520. And its quality is BTW horrible. The only good system is still satellite Sky (that bought DirecTV Brasil few months ago, not more than 3 and a half years).

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Where in the world there is an excuse for these astronomical prices in a city where 1/3 of the population lived below the poverty line, and in a metro city where 3/5 were as well, just 12 years ago? How the hell these GatoNets get so much profit if it's 1/10 of their prices, 50 reais in Rio and Niterói, and 30 reais in Baixada Fluminense? Corporations are really not the ones to trust. And people don't guess why we voted for a Marxist ex-labor union leader and an ex-guerrilla leader. How in this atmosphere of social apartheid and consequences of neoliberalism and globalism, the fully alienated fundamentalist poors, stupid right-winger American-way-of-life middle classes and reactionary burgeoisie think we are retarded for voting for them? As an anarchist I obviously didn't like our governments of both factions, but things only get worse when we elect incredibly corrupt conservatives and Christian democrats. Such as those damn bastards, Eduardo Paes e Sérgio Cabral.

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As Rusell said, they do it only in slum communities. Those benefitted are still only the ones living in the inner city, as its access in the metropolitan region is still absent except for luxury Sky and illegal GatoNet (popular at its most here, why would it be?). That's probably because of hidden interests, our middle class is not thaaaat well so we shouldn't be ignored. Although this index was made to claim that the government is doing well their job (our rich start in at least 9000 reais per month, a little more than 17 minimal wages, in my opinion), according to them those of the middle class or income are gaining between 500 and 1000 monthly reais. So it is still unfair to the largest part of the population.

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GatoNet was kind of a lesson to them. If companies are tricksters, Brazilians and their "culture" of taking opportunities out of others, in some cases even if it's completely against law, moral and ethics, can be even better ones. The losses should be much greater.

 anonymous Very insightful comment! I don't agree 100% with some things you said though, for instance there are still working-class people and middle-class elderly in Rio's Zona Sul (for ex. in Copacabana) - but I wonder how long they will be able to afford it...

It's hard to feel sorry for cable companies.

And instead of doing what a business should do to become competitive, they decide to only offer lower-priced packages in "slum communities."  What a crock.