True, and to add Charlie (quite sometime ago) actually said they would rather have fewer but paying subscribers than more but not as many paying. So far it seems to be profitable and DISH does continue to invest for future options.
Yeah, and from a savvy investor's point of view, that would be a good buy in stock, but Wall Street is so short term in its vision: net subscriber numbers and Subscriber Acquisition Cost seem to be the ONLY numbers Wall Street cares about--not even the positive profit numbers for several quarters. The business press is also out to lunch. They should be doing articles on how the heck Dish continues to lose subscribers for several quarters (years), but has manged increased profits those same quarters (years). That would make a good story and would fly against what Wall Street wants.
Meanwhile, DirecTV's relentless quest for more subscribers has brought it charges from the FTC and hurt its brand via word of mouth as I have come across a LOT of people who feel PO'd about DTV's discount price only being for one year of the TWO year agreement, and the FTC charges, among other things, that DTV failed to disclose this clearly to subscribers.
FWIW, the family owner of In-n-Out burger has publicly stated just about a week ago that she will never take her company public. The only reason, she said, she would ever take it public is to make money. The inference is that once you let Wall Street in, they pretty much want performance at the expense of quality most often driven by short term avarice, not good long term investments. And In-n-Out is still an extremely HOT company (although still modest with restaurants in only a few states in the west) with imitators (really copy-cats) in China and Seattle. In-n-Out could easily go public and be the Krispy Kreme of the 21st century, but would undoubtedly last a whole lot longer at the top then the one time HOT NOW doughnut company, which some blame going public for "ruining" the once genteel doughnut maker . So, for someone with such a pot of gold staring them in the face, it really shows how she values the quality of the company and its product and brand over more money than she could spend. In other words, she is rich enough as it is. Rare to find anyone in business who lacks GREED. For consumers who value such businesses, it is good news NOT to got to Wall Street. In fact, there has been something of a mini-movement to take public companies back to being PRIVATE again. And we all know why: Wall Street GREED.