5 ms·

I just signed up to see if they could renegotiate my Comcast price for me. It turns out you have to buy either 10 hours at $100/hour or 40 hours at $75/hour to

by tghw 11y ago

I just signed up to see if they could renegotiate my Comcast price for me. It turns out you have to buy either 10 hours at $100/hour or 40 hours at $75/hour to get started. That's way too steep to try something out.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago
I feel like, if your income is such that you care about your Comcast bill, you are really not the target market for Magic+. This is aimed squarely at the Rolex-and-Lexus set.
- tghw 11y ago
  An hour of my time is worth more than an hour of their time costs. And that's without counting the headache of doing it. Considering it would save me money for less than I would "spend" doing it myself, I don't see how it's not an application for most people.
  - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
    If you're saying that you make >$100/hour, then you are a long, long way from "most people."
  - craftkiller 11y ago
    $100/hr is a salary of $208,000 which only about 5% [1] of household incomes exceed that. Certainly not "most people" [1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-p...
    - sureshv 11y ago
      Less taxes so more like $150/hr just to break even.
    - cookiecaper 11y ago
      He's not going to hire Magic+ for 40 hours per week. Many services are $100/hr or more, they're just rarely billed out that way, because people have this reaction. If you have a moderate amount of disposable income, you can afford to have simple requests filled by Magic+ for $15-$30 (10-20 minutes of personal assistant time) several times a month. The viability of the product for a solid middle class user really just depends on if Magic+ can fill the type of requests that you'd want to offload in a time-efficient manner or not. Some people in this thread say they're hyper-efficient and specially trained to do so, so it may be worth a try.
      - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
        > If you have a moderate amount of disposable income, you can afford to have simple requests filled by Magic+ for $15-$30 (10-20 minutes of personal assistant time) several times a month. Well, except that--as the grandparent post said--the minimum buy is $1000 for 10 hours. That puts it well outside "casual purchase, might come in handy" and into "must have a specific, long-term use in mind" for the typical middle-class income.
        corin_ 11y ago
        Yeah... I would be up for trying it (if they now or in the future allow European customers), and could imagine liking it enough to be willing to put in $1000 to last me a while, but not without trying it for a few $10s first. Maybe they are choosing to price out those of us who would use occasionally but not often, or maybe it's an acceptable downside to benefits they get from having other people pay that lump up front. (For example, maybe they've found that in the first $200 of spending people aren't convinced, but if they're forced to spend another $800 then they start to appreciate the service more and are less likely to stop using it.)
        cookiecaper 11y ago
        You're right. I missed the comment about a minimum buy-in. That definitely puts it outside of the reach of someone who may find it useful for simple, occasional tasks. I guess they still want those people to use standard Magic.
newman314 11y ago
Lol. Great idea although it would likely take longer than that. I would however pay for an outcome based solution to this as it's a pain to call Comcast every year. Renegotiate to $X for Y and I'll pay.
- tghw 11y ago
  Have you seen https://www.billfixers.com/ https://www.billfixers.com/?
  - newman314 11y ago
    No. Checking it out. Have you used this before?
cscharenberg 11y ago
I was just reading about a company started by 2 brothers that does exactly this. If I can remember the name, I'll post back. Maybe I saw it in Bloomberg? Anyone?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- web007 11y ago
  Maybe thinking of AirPaper? Not taking new customers at this time. Some co-workers have raved about https://www.fancyhands.com/ https://www.fancyhands.com/ for this kind of stuff, not sure if that's any different from Magic, though.
  - ChrisCinelli 11y ago
    You can even send an API request ;-)
- jacobevelyn 11y ago
  It might be BillFixers? (https://www.billfixers.com https://www.billfixers.com) The Bloomberg article you may have read: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-10/billfixers-haggles-with-companies-to-get-your-bills-reduced http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-10/billfixers...
  - tghw 11y ago
    If so, they charge 50% of the annual savings. That's steeper than a couple of hours of Magic+.
    - lanewinfield 11y ago
      Not if you have to buy a minimum of 10 hours AND with BillFixers, you're getting a DEFINITE savings of 100% of whatever you paid them.
  - cscharenberg 11y ago
chemmail 11y ago
It will probably take those 10 hours being on old for comcast to pickup. You think i'm joking.
- hammock 11y ago
  But is it worth $1000?
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  Considering that many kinds of common requests would likely involve waiting on hold, I'd be surprised if they didn't contract out to some cheap automated service to handle "wait until this goes off hold and then connect me to them".
  - avar 11y ago
    But that's not the actual problem. Let's say the hold time is a random 10 to 20 minutes. What's your personal assistant supposed to do in the meantime? They can't reasonably do anything that requires making calls or other real-time interaction in case the first phone call is picked up. Even if they could make them do some non-time-sensitive secondary task while they're on hold on some primary task they'd still suffer some time wasted due to overhead & distractions.
- op00to 11y ago
  Why wouldn't Magic+ have a relationship with Comcast where they can bypass the queues? Seems like a natural relationship to have.
  - FireBeyond 11y ago
    Then I, as someone who manages a remote development shop and pays Comcast in the several thousands a month for Internet access, would be pissed that -I- don't get such access. Why on earth should Magic have a "preferred relationship" so they can make money letting their customers skip the line I'm waiting in?
  - exadeci 11y ago

by tghw 11y ago

PhasmaFelis 11y ago

I feel like, if your income is such that you care about your Comcast bill, you are really not the target market for Magic+. This is aimed squarely at the Rolex-and-Lexus set.

tghw 11y ago
An hour of my time is worth more than an hour of their time costs. And that's without counting the headache of doing it. Considering it would save me money for less than I would "spend" doing it myself, I don't see how it's not an application for most people.
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  If you're saying that you make >$100/hour, then you are a long, long way from "most people."
- craftkiller 11y ago
  $100/hr is a salary of $208,000 which only about 5% [1] of household incomes exceed that. Certainly not "most people" [1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-p...
  - sureshv 11y ago
    Less taxes so more like $150/hr just to break even.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    He's not going to hire Magic+ for 40 hours per week. Many services are $100/hr or more, they're just rarely billed out that way, because people have this reaction. If you have a moderate amount of disposable income, you can afford to have simple requests filled by Magic+ for $15-$30 (10-20 minutes of personal assistant time) several times a month. The viability of the product for a solid middle class user really just depends on if Magic+ can fill the type of requests that you'd want to offload in a time-efficient manner or not. Some people in this thread say they're hyper-efficient and specially trained to do so, so it may be worth a try.
    - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
      > If you have a moderate amount of disposable income, you can afford to have simple requests filled by Magic+ for $15-$30 (10-20 minutes of personal assistant time) several times a month. Well, except that--as the grandparent post said--the minimum buy is $1000 for 10 hours. That puts it well outside "casual purchase, might come in handy" and into "must have a specific, long-term use in mind" for the typical middle-class income.
      - corin_ 11y ago
        Yeah... I would be up for trying it (if they now or in the future allow European customers), and could imagine liking it enough to be willing to put in $1000 to last me a while, but not without trying it for a few $10s first. Maybe they are choosing to price out those of us who would use occasionally but not often, or maybe it's an acceptable downside to benefits they get from having other people pay that lump up front. (For example, maybe they've found that in the first $200 of spending people aren't convinced, but if they're forced to spend another $800 then they start to appreciate the service more and are less likely to stop using it.)
      - cookiecaper 11y ago
        You're right. I missed the comment about a minimum buy-in. That definitely puts it outside of the reach of someone who may find it useful for simple, occasional tasks. I guess they still want those people to use standard Magic.

newman314 11y ago

Lol. Great idea although it would likely take longer than that. I would however pay for an outcome based solution to this as it's a pain to call Comcast every year. Renegotiate to $X for Y and I'll pay.

tghw 11y ago
Have you seen https://www.billfixers.com/ https://www.billfixers.com/?
- newman314 11y ago
  No. Checking it out. Have you used this before?

cscharenberg 11y ago

I was just reading about a company started by 2 brothers that does exactly this. If I can remember the name, I'll post back. Maybe I saw it in Bloomberg? Anyone?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
web007 11y ago
Maybe thinking of AirPaper? Not taking new customers at this time. Some co-workers have raved about https://www.fancyhands.com/ https://www.fancyhands.com/ for this kind of stuff, not sure if that's any different from Magic, though.
- ChrisCinelli 11y ago
  You can even send an API request ;-)
jacobevelyn 11y ago
It might be BillFixers? (https://www.billfixers.com https://www.billfixers.com) The Bloomberg article you may have read: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-10/billfixers-haggles-with-companies-to-get-your-bills-reduced http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-10/billfixers...
- tghw 11y ago
  If so, they charge 50% of the annual savings. That's steeper than a couple of hours of Magic+.
  - lanewinfield 11y ago
    Not if you have to buy a minimum of 10 hours AND with BillFixers, you're getting a DEFINITE savings of 100% of whatever you paid them.
- cscharenberg 11y ago

chemmail 11y ago

It will probably take those 10 hours being on old for comcast to pickup. You think i'm joking.

hammock 11y ago
But is it worth $1000?
JoshTriplett 11y ago
Considering that many kinds of common requests would likely involve waiting on hold, I'd be surprised if they didn't contract out to some cheap automated service to handle "wait until this goes off hold and then connect me to them".
- avar 11y ago
  But that's not the actual problem. Let's say the hold time is a random 10 to 20 minutes. What's your personal assistant supposed to do in the meantime? They can't reasonably do anything that requires making calls or other real-time interaction in case the first phone call is picked up. Even if they could make them do some non-time-sensitive secondary task while they're on hold on some primary task they'd still suffer some time wasted due to overhead & distractions.
op00to 11y ago
Why wouldn't Magic+ have a relationship with Comcast where they can bypass the queues? Seems like a natural relationship to have.
- FireBeyond 11y ago
  Then I, as someone who manages a remote development shop and pays Comcast in the several thousands a month for Internet access, would be pissed that -I- don't get such access. Why on earth should Magic have a "preferred relationship" so they can make money letting their customers skip the line I'm waiting in?
- exadeci 11y ago