Most of what Dish is pulling right now (and apparently will get away with) is a direct result of it's customers being a bunch of whining sheep with no backbone to fight for anything - just bitch about it.
I've been trying to tell this group for a long time that this is the kind of company "E" is (and "D" is no better). What you're seeing has been planned but certain things had to happen first; one being the fall (acquisition) of Voom, the other being "D" establishing a commitment to stay with downrezed HD.
Dish doesn't care if we're happy. Dish doesn't care if we whine, sputter and bitch to each other in these groups. As long as we continue to pay Dish "X" $$, on time, every month they will do as little as possible in return. Their priority will always be on getting more customers to do the same. What they provide in return will be just enough to insure that - no more.
Dish has established that they have no qualms about not always telling the truth. Why should they ? They've always said what they had to at the time and then did or didn't do whatever was best for Dish. Sometimes it's corresponded with what they had said, other times not.
As long as profits are up and churn is manageable and Dish stays under the same management, this will not change. You don't fight this kind of attitude with talk. You don't even fight it with walk unless you're doing it as a big enough block of customers.
To fight a company like Echostar, you have to be willing to sacrifice short term to gain long term. You have form a large group and commit to each other. Be willing to give something up for the betterment of the whole group. From what I see, none of you are willing to do that and until you are, you're never going to have a whole lot of influence with Dish or anyone else for that matter.
Now say 75% of all HD customers that monitor this and the other major discussion groups, get together and organize a "HD viewer" coalition of sorts. They submit a list of concerns to Dish with the understanding that if nothing can be worked out, "X" thousand customers immediately drop any HD related programming with Dish. Then you wait it out.
Unless you have that kind of backbone, you're always going to be at the mercy of companies like Dish and the only benefits you might receive are those caused by competition from another company. Sadly however, I personally believe the only real competition died with Voom.
So, either somebody takes the ball here and we all commit to a fight or just go back to your coach and accept whatever comes down the pike. Hey we may get lucky this time, who knows but there will always be another situation similar to this with Dish - because that's the way they are. Fortunately they're still better that "D" - at the moment.
