ICC raises rates

ICC will raise rates starting August, from 49 per year to 59. I'm not sure it's worth it, with the 20% increase, since i use FICS quite a bit. I'll stick with it a while longer. They do have a much bigger program. At least it doesn't go up every day, like at the gas pumps!

Originally posted by buddy2
ICC will raise rates starting August, from 49 per year to 59. I'm not sure it's worth it, with the 20% increase, since i use FICS quite a bit. I'll stick with it a while longer. They do have a much bigger program. At least it doesn't go up every day, like at the gas pumps!

I don't get it. I got F9 for $35. So, I got an engine and a 1 year subscription to playchess for less than it costs for just the 1 year ICC membership. Why even bother with ICC?

Originally posted by cmsMaster
I don't get it. I got F9 for $35. So, I got an engine and a 1 year subscription to playchess for less than it costs for just the 1 year ICC membership. Why even bother with ICC?

BTW, is the new interface out yet?

Originally posted by buddy2
ICC will raise rates starting August, from 49 per year to 59. I'm not sure it's worth it, with the 20% increase, since i use FICS quite a bit. I'll stick with it a while longer. They do have a much bigger program. At least it doesn't go up every day, like at the gas pumps!

And no guest memebership come August!

Originally posted by RahimK
And no guest memebership come August!

I hope that nobody signs up for ICC after they raise the rates 😛. Seriously though, how do they justify raising them?

they raise prices so that the guys running the site can pay for gas

I'll probably sign up for ICC tomorrow so I don't have to pay extra later. ICC has raised their price, but they have also raised their service. It would be only fair to mention that. They are planning better coverage, better prizes, better help and better software. Considering everything, it's not a bad deal at all. This is even more true for students like me.

Originally posted by exigentsky
I'll probably sign up for ICC tomorrow so I don't have to pay extra later. ICC has raised their price, but they have also raised their service. It would be only fair to mention that. They are planning better coverage, better prizes, better help and better software. Considering everything, it's not a bad deal at all. This is even more true for students like me.

Student's get a discount. I think it's around $25 Us right now?

Originally posted by cmsMaster
I don't get it. I got F9 for $35. So, I got an engine and a 1 year subscription to playchess for less than it costs for just the 1 year ICC membership. Why even bother with ICC?

I should imagine most seroius players already own a copy of Fritz 7/8/9 and thus they all would have free 1 yr memberships.

so the only reason I can think that people would still pay for ICC is because its a whole lot better.

Originally posted by Sicilian Smaug
Yes, In Britain as well, British Gas has upped the rates, Some poor people will have to stay cold at home this winter.

I heard on the radio on friday that we are suffering yet these gas companys are setting new profit levels of BILLIONS!!

Originally posted by RahimK
I heard on the radio on friday that we are suffering yet these gas companys are setting new profit levels of BILLIONS!!

Yes, there's nothing worse than a business being allowed to make a profit. We should just take away all of their evil earnings, that'll show those greedy capitalists! Who do they think they are trying to make money?

Rahim, may I suggest you learn some basic economics?

Originally posted by Mad Rook
Yes, there's nothing worse than a business being allowed to make a profit. We should just take away all of their evil earnings, that'll show those greedy capitalists! Who do they think they are trying to make money?

Rahim, may I suggest you learn some basic economics?

That's not what I meant. I said they are making Record Profits, you get it, Record Profits.

They are making more money then ever!

In some industries in Canada they do exactly that. It's regulated, natural gas, water etc... They should do that with gasoline also.

Originally posted by Sicilian Smaug
*There's nothing worse than a company with a monolopy on a certain industry being allowed to increase rates just to provide higher end of year bonuses for fat cats.*

Maybe you need to learn not to be such a right wing idiot.

Well, it's easy to call people names, so let's do something useful and look at the numbers. Since you mentioned British Gas, I'll look at that one. From the BG GROUP PLC 2006 Second Quarter results, the earnings per share for the second quarter (including disposals and remeasurements, which increases the stated earnings figure) is 12.0p. The current LSE share price of British Gas is 717.00p. So, dividing 12.0p by 717p gives 0.01674p per share quarterly earnings. Multiply that by 4 to get an annual figure, and you get an annualized earnings per share of 6.7 percent. Not exactly what I'd call excessive profits.

In fact, most business owners would be very unhappy with earnings that low. For a business to stay competitive, it has to earn profits above the return of riskless investments such as government bonds. If a business can't earn profits higher than riskless investments, the business will either go bankrupt or will shrivel up and die due to lack of capital. Granted, monopolies don't have the worries of going out of business. However, that's why they are regulated by governments. I'm simply contending that a 6.7 percent annual profit is not anything for a company to brag about.

I eagerly await your intelligent rebuttal.