Best Buy\Monster Cable Anecdote + Rant

I went to Best Buy to purchase a Toslink audio cable for my mom's audio system. She has this moderately problematic Sony system which is an integrated Blu-Ray player and 5-channel amplifier. To be perfectly honest I am confused by all the gozintas and gozouttas and haven't put together a proper mental model of how to connect it all in my head, as I can do with my own equipment at home. The thing does this sporadic muting thing, I don't know what its problem is. Anyway, I wanted to try connecting the cable box via Toslink rather than using the HDMI to see if that works.

So I go into the local Best Buy and head towards the audio section. I see the cables and know I am only one aisle away from what I want. A young Best Buy clerk says, "Can I help you sir" and instead of saying "No thank you!" like I should have I said, "Yeah, I'm looking for an optical audio cable." So we walk over to the other side of the shelf and whaddaya know, audio cables.

"So what do you want? Six foot? Four foot? Good? Bad?" he asks.

I am now perfectly happy to look through the selection by myself and have no further use for this guy.

"Thanks!" I say.

"The Monster cable is good."

"No, I'm not buying anything from Monster."

"Why not? They make the best cables around." he says matter of factly.

"They're bullies. They go around suing other companies."

"Well, AT&T is successful too, what's wrong with that?"

"AT&T doesn't sue unrelated companies that have names which might sound something like "at & t"

"No, they just buy them out!"

I say nothing and continue looking.

"Well let me know if you have any questions".
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It's so annoying. Yes, I'm sure Monster makes prefectly fine products, but so do plenty of companies. Ones that DON'T use the legal system as their own personal cudgel. They're good at marketing, which is what the majority of the audio industry is built on. Nothing immoral about that, but Monster just has an especially icky affinity for targeting uninformed, non-technically minded folks at big box stores and selling them on this superfluous bling and packaging. Sending out your vulture lawyers to harass folks for imaginary branding infringements is fucking bullshit any way you slice it. I don't give a fuck about the laws, it's basic common sense. That kind of behavior is just plain nasty.

Fundamentally it's not Monster's fault, it's the existence of a band of criminals and miscreants otherwise known as the government. Sure Boromir didn't make the ring of power, he may not be as evil as Sauron himself, but he's still a dick for wanting to use that power. (and unlike Boromir, Monster did actually use the hell out of the ring) Just because a library full of shitty laws can cast magic spells to make suing unthreatening companies with the name "monster" in them "okay" doesn't make it okay.

So anyway, I grabbed the cheapest cable they had and bought the damn thing. It's light fer Pete's sake. A blinking light shone through fiber optic cable. Whoop de doo. It either transmits a signal or it doesn't. And if there IS evidence that one brand is objectively better than another I can guarantee you my mom won't notice. (no offense ma, I probably couldn't either)

So anyway, here's hoping the "cheap" Toslink does the trick. And to all litigious assholes everywhere: get a real job!