Which annoyed me. And not for the first time in my life, I blamed Maggie Thatcher. That probably needs a bit of unpicking. Why would anyone be angry at saving a pile of money? And what exactly does a broadband bill have to do with someone who stepped down as prime minister in 1990, when the World Wide Web was one year old and my home computer had a green screen and a tape deck?

So just to be clear, it wasn’t the prospect of having more money that made me cross. That, I’ll freely admit, would be insane. But here’s the back story. Many years ago, I signed up for a TV and internet service – most likely dial-up at that point, though I forget.

Through a combination of inflation, arbitrary price hikes and sheer chutzpah, my monthly costs gradually worked their way from hefty to eye-watering. But partly because no single price rise was all that outrageous – and partly because doing nothing is always easier than doing something – I kept on paying them.

When the discrepancy between the money paid and service received finally became too much to ignore, I phoned to cancel. But remarkably – and I suspect you’re ahead of me here – they suddenly found it in their hearts to reduce the bill by well over half. Yes, it was obviously a bribe. But it was quite a big one. I agreed to stay.

So imagine my surprise – and you’ll have to imagine it, because there was no surprise at all – when the prices quickly resumed their tireless hike, until they were roughly back at the point that had led me to cancel in the first place. So naturally, I did nothing – but when a cold caller from a rival company came to the door with a decent bribe of their own, I decided to go for it. Crucially, they said they would deal with all the changeover arrangements themselves, so at least I wouldn’t have to speak to another salesperson. Except of course I would.

“Hello, we’re sorry to hear you’ve decided to leave us. I’ll just see if there’s anything we can do to change your mind – oh, it turns out we can offer you…”

Who’d have thunk it? An offer genuinely too good to refuse, despite the obvious farce of the whole process: two years of telly and broadband for twenty quid a month. That would have been a steal two decades ago, never mind now. And this from the same people who would have cheerfully charged me five times that for as long as they could get away with it. So all I’m really doing is clawing back a bit of the money I’ve been overcharged for years - hence why I’m only partly thrilled.

And why Thatcher? Because in so many ways, she started it. Back in the day, I mainly despised her for destroying so many of Britain’s industries. In retrospect, some of those industries were doomed in any case – her much greater crime was (quite deliberately) doing nothing at all to support the cities and regions decimated by their loss. Meanwhile, under the pretext of deregulation and opportunity, she asset-stripped the country. Housing, public buildings, railways and utilities were subject to a fire sale.

A lot of people got rich as a country got poor. Forty years on, house prices are stratospheric, social housing non-existent, railways hilarious, infrastructure crumbling and CEOs absolutely minted. Tell Sid, they said in the TV adverts at the time. They didn’t say exactly what to tell him.

Granted, Thatcher didn’t personally shape the modern communications industry, but only because it didn’t exist. The model is identical though: take a universal need – communication in this case – contrive some non-existent competition and present all this as a positive. All people need to do to benefit is constantly monitor price comparison sites for absolutely everything, switch supplier every ten minutes, and threaten to take their business elsewhere to earn a brief pause to the extortion.

And the whole thing is predicated on the assumption that enough people can’t or won’t keep on top of it all, so they can continue to be fleeced while a few others benefit. It’s as tiring as it is unnecessary. And at the risk of sounding like a grizzled old leftie – which wouldn’t be a world away from the truth – I’m calling bullshit.