BT all very successful organisations in terms of profit and market share
BT only make the profit they do because of their monopolistic marketshare.... if they don't get you via BT Retail, chances are in 100% of the cases for Residential customers and 70% of the cases for Business Customers they've got their fingers in the pies that will get them a piece of the action via BT Wholesale or BT Openreach. The regulator has no teeth.
I don't think you can pat BT on the back for being successful given all the benefits they enjoy. The only way they'd make a loss is if you put a bunch of toddlers in charge of the show.
Re:successful .... B&Q agreed, Ryanair agreed, Sky partially .... they don't exactly have much competition.
Part of the problem, as you say, is the stupid rush to the bottom on pricing caused by the idiotic lo to no cost mentality of customers, particularly the residential private individuals.
But quite frankly, companies like BT should know better and should not be structuring and marketing products the way they do to uneducated customers. Sure, make it cheap... but don't hide behind fancy marketing and small print... make it clear what compromises you've made in order to deliver the service at that price point.
Agree with you on Nildram, and have seen what happened to them. Hence my warnings about BT & Plusnet..... one day, it will happen... not might, will.
Over and out from Mixture who has happily never flown Ryanair and only Easyjet once because the nearest anyone else could get me was 200 kilometres away !