As social media grows, I can’t help but wonder whether the pendulum will shift from hard stance don’t let them take advantage of us to cautious hassle-free dealing with the customer. (Probably not the TSA though!) More and more of us have hundreds or thousands of people that we can reach out to with a message. You can look at companies like McDonalds on Twitter and see them interacting with those who are having bad experiences.

The smaller companies could gain a bit on the larger ones because they realize that the extra caring, extra service that they get when they pay a bit more is probably worth it. As more people consume media online (maybe still several years down the road), the cable company that you dealt with may not be able to get away with that hassling anymore.