Everyone hates Comcast and loves Netflix
People love streaming services such as Netflix and Twitch. Their internet service providers? Not so much.
That's the conclusion reached by the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) report, which used data from around 250,000 customer interviews.
This year, satisfaction with internet service providers reached an all-time low.
Spectrum -- formerly known as Time Warner Cable -- received a score of 60 out of 100, an 8 percent drop from last year. Comcast's Xfinity received the same score. The most popular service was Verizon's Fios, which dropped from 71 to 70 over the last year.
Why do people hate their ISPs?
They rated very poorly in "call center satisfaction," aka the living hell that is dealing with cable and internet service providers over the phone. The companies also received low marks for "overall data transfer speed" and "variety of internet plans available." Thanks to an endless string of mergers, consumers don't have a lot of choices when it comes to ISPs, and they're obviously not happy about it.
People are much more satisfied with streaming services, which were rated for the first time by ACSI. Netflix, Sony PlayStation Vue, and Twitch all received scores of 78.
Customers loved their easy-to-understand bills and "overall performance and reliability." One area that could use improvement: "availability of new movie titles." Basically, we'd like more content, please.
Overall, streaming services had an average rating of 75, much higher than internet service providers, which averaged 62.
Keith Wagstaff is an assistant editor at Mashable and a terrible Settlers of Catan player. He has written for TIME, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, NBC News, The Village Voice, VICE, GQ and New York Magazine, among many other reputable and not-so-reputable publications. After nearly a decade in New York City, he now lives in his native Los Angeles.
