Not to invalidate the way you feel about that interaction, but putting myself in their shoes- I’m not sure my response would be much better.
Running a booth at a conference is EXHAUSTING. Also, that was your first interaction with them and you were at peak excitement. That might’ve been the thousandth time they had heard similar and their spark may have faded by the time you got there.
I get it though, we feel the way we feel. It sucks when your enthusiasm goes un-matched. I’ve written off companies for interactions a more objective bystander might charitably forgive.
BTW- I’ve got no relation to the company or product. I’m just a happy customer who’s run a booth or two in my day and also felt the same way as you about other companies too.
TP-Link actually really isn't that crappy for the price point. Which was the gist of my entire statement. For sub-$100 you can get Routers that will keep up with (in most metrics) $200+ routers. Yes, these are generally pretty cheap and they may crap out sooner than some other brands but if you compare them to the same routers in the same price class I would be shocked if they were not considered at the top of their class.
That all being said, my entire home network is Ubiquiti. So we don't disagree on which is better of the two brands.
The Arris/Motorola Surfboard series have always been great for me. I think the biggest difference between the cheapest model and the most expensive one is that the most expensive one is capable of a theoretical max that is multiples of what Comcast even offers. So, it's technically more future proof. I've had the cheapest one forever and never had issues with it being slower than my pipe could deliver.
I've been back on FiOS since we moved back to PDX last summer, so my last cable modem switcharoo was about 5 years ago in Seattle. It's likely they could've made it easier.
To that end, I've done the modem switch probably a dozen times for myself, family, or friends and I've never encountered any resistance from Comcast during the process. Though they did fat finger a MAC address or serial number one time.
The beauty is that (as far as my experience for the last ten years with Comcast for home and business in Seattle and Portland) I've never once had to do any configuration other than plugging it in while on the phone with support and reading off the various IDs.
The only thing I've ever needed was the serial numbers and such that are printed on the bottom of my modem.
Pro tip, the chat is much faster, tether to your phone for internet and do it via their web chat.
The best thing anyone can do is swap out the junky cable modem + WiFi router combos they rent to you. They're horrible under standard usage, bad when lots of clients are connected, bad wifi range, low memory, require frequent reboots, etc.
For about $70 (about 5mos of rental charges) you can get a Surfboard barebones Docsis 3 modem that will vastly outperform whatever junk they rent out.
After that you could get a TP-Link Archer C7 for sub $80 that will have good range and performance for that price point.
So within about the first year you've broken even with vastly superior components and you'll be able to take them with you to any cable provider you wind up using in the future.
I get why most people don't do this, they don't even know it's possible, but I'm amazed when colleagues in the industry are still running the company hardware.
Running a booth at a conference is EXHAUSTING. Also, that was your first interaction with them and you were at peak excitement. That might’ve been the thousandth time they had heard similar and their spark may have faded by the time you got there.
I get it though, we feel the way we feel. It sucks when your enthusiasm goes un-matched. I’ve written off companies for interactions a more objective bystander might charitably forgive.
BTW- I’ve got no relation to the company or product. I’m just a happy customer who’s run a booth or two in my day and also felt the same way as you about other companies too.