Here’s why so many people dislike Xfinity:
There are a lot of reasons people cite when explaining their dislike of Xfinity.
Most of them boil down to customer service problems: unclear pricing, difficulty canceling, long wait times, etc.
Xfinity also garnered a lot of public hate by publicly and adamantly opposing net neutrality regulations.
So if you want to learn all about the exact reasons why so many people dislike Xfinity, then this article is for you.
Let’s get right into it!
What Is Xfinity?
I’m assuming that you have heard of Xfinity before.
I’m not trying to explain the obvious here.
Instead, I want to clarify a little bit because Xfinity is a massive company with fingers in a lot of pies.
It’s possible that people dislike everything having to do with Xfinity, but that’s not what I researched, and that’s not what I’m talking about right now.
Xfinity is currently the largest cable TV and internet provider in the United States.
It has a huge market share in both services, and as they primarily run along the same infrastructure, I’ll be grouping them together for the sake of this discussion.
When I talk about Xfinity here, I’m really focusing on the TV and internet provider aspects of the company.
A lot of people dislike Xfinity as a service provider. That’s the main issue.
Comcast vs. Xfinity
There’s something else we need to cover before we can really get into public opinion.
A lot of people already know this, but Xfinity is actually just a branding name used by Comcast Cable Communications, LLC (which I will refer to as Comcast henceforth).
Comcast is actually the bigger company.
Xfinity is a brand name used for TV and internet services (and some other services too).
This brand name came into being in 2010.
Before that, there was no Xfinity, only Comcast.
At that time, Comcast was already dealing with public perception issues, so the brand change to Xfinity was part of a large move to help with public image and to separate the service-providing aspects of the business from other major dealings under the broader Comcast name.
As an example, Comcast owns a lot of media production subsidiaries, and it’s actually one of the largest media companies in the world too.
Part of introducing the Xfinity name was to separate internet service from media production.
You get the idea.
I’m bringing this up because as I stated before, I’m really focusing on the service provider aspect of this whole thing.
So, we really are talking about Xfinity today, but for the sake of conversation, I’ll actually be saying both Comcast and Xfinity.
From here on out, I’m using them interchangeably.
A Quick Disclaimer
One last detour before we really get into it.
I have personally been a Comcast and Xfinity customer for more than a decade.
I’ll say that my personal experience has been mixed.
There have been good and bad moments, but I have to be honest about biases.
I’m going to do my utmost to remove bias and try to present fair information, but at the very least, you know to take some of what I say with a grain of salt.
Alright. That’s all of the background we need.
Let’s talk about why people don’t like Xfinity.
Why Do People Dislike Xfinity? (4 Issues)
Let me make one thing very clear.
A lot of people dislike Xfinity.
I mean a lot.
Comcast’s public perception issues are pretty much legendary at this point.
It’s so bad that there is an entire Wikipedia article dedicated just to the dislike of Comcast.
Earlier I linked the article for Xfinity.
It has the date Xfinity was launched and those kinds of facts.
I’m linking the other Wikipedia article right here.
As you can see, this is just discussing why people dislike Xfinity.
There are a lot of complaints.
So, to keep things as clear as possible, I’ll go over the most-cited complaints, why people feel that way, and even if the complaints are sometimes unfair to Comcast.
#1 Bills
On one hand, people dislike bills in general.
Internet services definitely feel like a mandatory purchase these days, and none of us particularly enjoy shelling money out to the internet company every month.
Now, that’s not entirely fair to Comcast.
It costs money to provide these services, so it makes sense to charge for those services.
People (including myself) can be a little unreasonable about bills sometimes, and that’s certainly part of the reason why Xfinity is disliked.
But even in the specific category of bills, this isn’t the whole story.
People have specific reasons to dislike Xfinity billing.
Some of the most-cited complaints are the costs of hidden fees and extra charges on their TV and internet bills.
Xfinity provides itemized bills, and when you order a $75 internet package (just as an example), you might actually pay considerably more once all of the nickel and dime fees are calculated.
Beyond that, Comcast has been in the news many times for improperly overcharging customers.
It’s bad enough that these are bills you don’t want to pay and you get slapped with hidden fees.
To be overcharged on top of that is too much.
Maybe none of this has happened to you, but these are among the most prolific complaints against the company.
#2 Restrictions
Restrictions are a bit of a broad category, but basically, Xfinity can make it very difficult to control your own account.
It’s something that happens all too often in many industries.
It’s very easy for you to create an account and add Comcast services to that account.
It is much, much more difficult to remove services.
It feels like Comcast will come up with any excuse they can find to prevent you from downgrading or canceling services.
Sometimes, this might just be a perception, but there are a lot of documented cases where Xfinity flat-out refused to cancel or downgrade services for account owners.
The reasons vary, but it’s easy to see what is happening here.
Xfinity doesn’t want to lose revenue, and they seem to have a policy that tries to discourage customers from spending less money.
Needless to say, if and when this does happen, it’s frustrating, and it doesn’t help people like the company.
#3 Customer Service
This leads to a more general issue.
Comcast has some of the worst-rated customer service in the world, and they’ve held that title for many years.
Some of it is unfair to Comcast.
This is a huge company with many millions of users.
Sometimes, things don’t work, and it’s not really Xfinity’s fault.
Storms can knock out cable lines.
Things can go wrong, and the company actually has a pretty good track record in terms of uptime.
Additionally, a lot of people call Xfinity customer service.
Handling that volume of calls isn’t easy, and wait times are normal.
But, some of it really is deserved.
There are many, many documented cases of Comcast and Xfinity customer service representatives crossing the line and failing to provide good outcomes for customers.
You can look through the list of lawsuits on this matter, and you’ll see some that are plainly the company’s own fault.
#4 Net Neutrality
You may not have heard the phrase “net neutrality” in a while, but this is a huge deal in terms of Comcast and Xfinity perception.
“Net neutrality” was a term used to describe a philosophy of regulating the internet at large.
Comcast was notoriously against net neutrality regulations, and this is where I will probably be fairest to Comcast.
Net neutrality involved a lot of different parts, and there’s way too much to cover everything here.
One of the biggest things was that it legally put the entire burden of building up internet infrastructure on internet providers.
That might sound obvious, but before net neutrality regulations, that wasn’t really the case.
I’m going to use Netflix and Comcast as an example.
This is ultimately a complicated topic, so we’re keeping things a little oversimplified.
Ok. A lot of people use Netflix.
In fact, Netflix is responsible for so much internet traffic that Comcast had to build a ton of fiber optics lines, servers, relays, and other bits of infrastructure just to handle Netflix traffic. Compare that to what Comcast had to do to provide internet just to your house.
Clearly, Netflix is a bandwidth user on a level that no individual could match.
Because of this, Comcast and Netflix actually had an agreement where Netflix paid Comcast to help supplement these expenses.
Netflix wanted good internet to keep customers happy, and Comcast didn’t want to pay to build as fast as Netflix needed.
So, Netflix shelled out extra money to compensate.
Early net neutrality regulations actually changed these agreements.
The rules made it so Comcast legally had to pay the full cost of those infrastructure investments, so Netflix stopped paying according to the previous agreements.
This happened with a lot more companies than just Netflix and Comcast, and net neutrality involves a lot more than this one issue, but you can see Comcast’s incentive to oppose net neutrality.
It made things a lot more expensive for them.
Predictably, Comcast was vocally against net neutrality, and a lot of people didn’t like that.
