Octopus Tracker

stripling

Tracker April 24 version standing charge is 2p below the SVR.... in the S West.  It's losing its viability. 
The new July version is pretty pointless for most. 

I've just been booted off the December 23 V1 tariff and this is a 9p a day increase.  The move from the original Tracker V1 to December 23 V1 was a £300 increase in SCs so this was adding insult to injury. 
Octopus is using products to buy market share and probably banking on people hanging around when the shine wears off. 

Never forget Octopus is a branding exercise. 

Doc_N

stripling said:

Tracker April 24 version standing charge is 2p below the SVR.... in the S West.  It's losing its viability. 
The new July version is pretty pointless for most. 

I've just been booted off the December 23 V1 tariff and this is a 9p a day increase.  The move from the original Tracker V1 to December 23 V1 was a £300 increase in SCs so this was adding insult to injury. 
Octopus is using products to buy market share and probably banking on people hanging around when the shine wears off. 

Never forget Octopus is a branding exercise. 

Couldn’t agree more. It’s transformed itself from one of the good suppliers into one of the worst. I’ve lost all faith and trust in them.

masonic

They'll keep my custom until at least Feb 2025. The market could look quite different by then.

I've seen this pattern so often I wouldn't even feign surprise or disappointment. It is how most businesses operate, and part of the reason why this site exists. I'll just weigh up options when the time comes and do what's best for my wallet, just as Octopus is doing what's best for its investors. This is the natural order.

tghe-retford

masonic said:

They'll keep my custom until at least Feb 2025. The market could look quite different by then.

I've seen this pattern so often I wouldn't even feign surprise or disappointment. It is how most businesses operate, and part of the reason why this site exists. I'll just weigh up options when the time comes and do what's best for my wallet, just as Octopus is doing what's best for its investors. This is the natural order.

There's a specific term for this strategy that every company seems to be engaging in nowadays. I can't mention that term though as it contains four letters in a specific order that the moderators would not approve of but it is also known as platform decay. But the strategy applies three stages - first, offering a high quality service to attract customers by running at a loss, second - to prioritise business customers to increase profitability before finally maximising profits at the expense of both users and business customers.

masonic

tghe-retford said:

masonic said:

They'll keep my custom until at least Feb 2025. The market could look quite different by then.

I've seen this pattern so often I wouldn't even feign surprise or disappointment. It is how most businesses operate, and part of the reason why this site exists. I'll just weigh up options when the time comes and do what's best for my wallet, just as Octopus is doing what's best for its investors. This is the natural order.

There's a specific term for this strategy that every company seems to be engaging in nowadays. I can't mention that term though as it contains four letters in a specific order that the moderators would not approve of but it is also known as platform decay. But the strategy applies three stages - first, offering a high quality service to attract customers by running at a loss, second - to prioritise business customers to increase profitability before finally maximising profits at the expense of both users and business customers.

I think we can use the term enshittification on this forum, I got away with it last time. It has it's own wikipedia page

MP1995

I do believe Octopus are now more focused on their load shifting tariffs and the tracker formula is now making it less and less a "great deal"

We have found Agile gives us much better rates now as so far Octopus have not changed that formula. eg June was just over 10p kwh.

masonic

MP1995 said:

I do believe Octopus are now more focused on their load shifting tariffs and the tracker formula is now making it less and less a "great deal"

We have found Agile gives us much better rates now as so far Octopus have not changed that formula. eg June was just over 10p kwh.

Likely what we are now witnessing is the load-shifters jumping ship from Tracker for a slightly better deal with Agile, leaving those behind whose consumption is at a higher TOU rates, and the formula changing to reflect that.

MP1995

masonic said:

MP1995 said:

I do believe Octopus are now more focused on their load shifting tariffs and the tracker formula is now making it less and less a "great deal"

We have found Agile gives us much better rates now as so far Octopus have not changed that formula. eg June was just over 10p kwh.

Likely what we are now witnessing is the load-shifters jumping ship from Tracker for a slightly better deal with Agile, leaving those behind whose consumption is at a higher TOU rates, and the formula changing to reflect that.

Which is fair imo. Those that put themselves out to load shift and be "greener" should be rewarded. Apparently Octopus think so too.

tghe-retford

MP1995 said:

masonic said:

MP1995 said:

I do believe Octopus are now more focused on their load shifting tariffs and the tracker formula is now making it less and less a "great deal"

We have found Agile gives us much better rates now as so far Octopus have not changed that formula. eg June was just over 10p kwh.

Likely what we are now witnessing is the load-shifters jumping ship from Tracker for a slightly better deal with Agile, leaving those behind whose consumption is at a higher TOU rates, and the formula changing to reflect that.

Which is fair imo. Those that put themselves out to load shift and be "greener" should be rewarded. Apparently Octopus think so too.

If people shift their energy use and it starts losing then money, it will come to an end. If companies detest anything, it's shrinking profits.

MP1995

tghe-retford said:

MP1995 said:

masonic said:

MP1995 said:

I do believe Octopus are now more focused on their load shifting tariffs and the tracker formula is now making it less and less a "great deal"

We have found Agile gives us much better rates now as so far Octopus have not changed that formula. eg June was just over 10p kwh.

Likely what we are now witnessing is the load-shifters jumping ship from Tracker for a slightly better deal with Agile, leaving those behind whose consumption is at a higher TOU rates, and the formula changing to reflect that.

Which is fair imo. Those that put themselves out to load shift and be "greener" should be rewarded. Apparently Octopus think so too.

If people shift their energy use and it starts losing then money, it will come to an end. If companies detest anything, it's shrinking profits.

Oh I think you fundamentally misunderstand Tracker versus Agile and the formulas with your response.

The people left on tracker now, especially with the new more expensive July 2024 v1 formula, are those that will use most of their daily use in the 4-7pm peak expensive period and that is why Octopus have once again changed their formula adding approx 2p more to each kwh.

Tracker imo may become a dying tariff as the formula changes every 3 months now and gets ever closer totheprice cap on average but we shall see.

July formula changes for those interested below

https://octopus.energy/tracker-faqs/