If you want to look at it from a purely cold and objective light, then you are correct. It's true that it's not Comcast's problem, that there's a contractual clause, and that Comcast's role as a business is to maximize profit. However, it's also really bad public relations to look completely insensitive to hurricane victims, and that can affect the bottom line. The Consumerist is just changing the coefficients of the cost-benefit equation of eating the cable box cost vs. a public relations fiasco.