5 ms·

> That is, the core processes a business executes—from how it produces a product, to how it interacts with customers, to how it delivers services—are increasing

by mfer 7y ago

> That is, the core processes a business executes—from how it produces a product, to how it interacts with customers, to how it delivers services—are increasingly specified, monitored, and executed in software. When I think of businesses I think of the local auto repair shop, the restaurant around the corner, the paving company working on the roads, the local HVAC company around the corner from me, and the local gyms. The core products at the boot camp workout place across the street from me don't need to be specified, monitored, or executed in software. Somehow this reminded me that empathy is decreasing in society (you can search on it). Putting more computers between businesses and people isn't necessarily going to be better for people or the way we interact with each other.

libertine 7y ago
The sad thing, or at minimum odd thing, is that we're few years away from the positive differentiation factor being "you'll be talking to a human". In fact it should be made illegal to have people who's livelihood depend on a platform to be left at the hands of shit auto replies. If large scale comes at the cost of injustice, maybe large scale shouldn't be a thing. Youtube, Amazon Seller Central, and many others are terrible examples of what future holds for a lot of people.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  That's already the case in many industries - for many SaaS and telecom businesses the differentiator for expensive B2B plans is "24/7 support with a real human being", big IT companies like IBM and Oracle rely on "There's a human to blame when things go wrong" as their sole value prop, high-end retail like Nordstroms differentiates themselves from low-end retail like Walmart by the availability of personal sales assistants, and waiter-service restaurants differentiate themselves from McDonald's by the existence of a human who takes your order. The difference between Uber and a car service is whether the driver's waiting for you at baggage claim, greets you politely, and makes small talk on your way home. Personally I like it - I usually pick the self-checkouts, kiosks, and apps over talking with a real human being, who frequently acts like a robot anyway and tends to be slower and make mistakes more often. Also, I wonder if folks who say "if large scale comes at the cost of injustice, maybe large scale shouldn't be a thing" have really thought through the implications of this. I remember talking to a classmate in high school about Native American tribes, industrialization, American history, and how we really fucked over this idea of a tribe or village or community and the world was a lot less richer because of it. (This was pre-Internet - if only we could've guessed what the next 25 years would bring.) I agreed with all of his points, but then pointed out that the carrying capacity of the earth before modern agriculture, modern medicine, fossil fuels, etc. was roughly 1/20th what it is today, and did he really want to kill 95% of the people alive today? He responded, "Man, I feel shitty now." That's the nature of the scale vs. justice dilemma: you can't critically analyze scale & progress without also acknowledging the huge injustices it's created, but at the same time, reversing scale literally means death & suffering.
  - yifanl 7y ago
    Not to be glib, but there's no indication that continuing to scale won't result in the same death & suffering. And yeah, I wouldn't be alive today (and probably would've never been born in the first place) if not for hyperindustrialization, but... I really wonder if that's a bad thing. Would the world be better off if after making a product more efficient, our first reaction wasn't "Great! Now we can scale up production!"?
  - libertine 7y ago
    > I wonder if folks who say "if large scale comes at the cost of injustice, maybe large scale shouldn't be a thing" have really thought through the implications of this. I'm saying companies should be accountable for the loss they cause - if you're a Amazon Seller and you get your listing removed, you get an auto-reply and you try to talk to a human just to find a stream of auto-replies pasted together, because is in the sake of scale and progress the it's ok? Same goes for copyright claims on Youtube. You end up talking to auto-replies. Why should people livelihood be the cost to pay for scale? Why can't Google or Amazon pay people to supervise these replies and make amendments when the help is not only requested but required? I don't buy that "cost of progress" argument. I'm pro progress, I'm just against half baked solutions that seem to be progress but end up being cost saving measures. Why can't a user who got wrongfully harmed be compensated? Is that against scaling? Or shouldn't that be a cost of scale? Currently in my opinion it's irresponsibility. Irresponsibility disguised as Policy & Terms Agreements. At least in the EU Amazon is being pressured to cut this bullshit and act properly.
- mfer 7y ago
  Then maybe it's time to spend our money, time, and efforts with companies that aren't there.
  - libertine 7y ago
    But that seems what's being done, yet at the cost of poor customer service. Why not guarantee proper customer service instead of forcing a half baked solution?
    - rad_gruchalski 7y ago
      Profit.
paxys 7y ago
All the businesses you mentioned still have core products that are now reliant on software - customer service, scheduling appointments, marketing, analytics/business decision making and lots more.
- mfer 7y ago
  The two auto shops I've used in recent years were cases where I called someone on the telephone. I don't know how they handle scheduling on their end. It wasn't part of the core interaction loop. Now that I think of it, the place I now prefer to go isn't just because they do good work but because of my human interactions with the people there. They were more personable. The experience felt better because of the people. None of the core part of my interaction required software. To continue the auto shop example, sure they use software for their invoices and to detect problems in vehicles. They don't have to do that for invoices. It's a choice. It's not in the critical path. Most small businesses shouldn't have to spend a ton of time marketing. That's outside their core work. Marketing takes on a variety of things including word of mouth. That will change over time and sure, people use software based ads. But, it's not required and not the core of the business.
unoti 7y ago
> When I think of businesses I think of the local auto repair shop, the restaurant around the corner, the paving company working on the roads, the local HVAC company around the corner from me, and the local gyms. That makes sense that you’re thinking of those local businesses. They’re the ones that are left after we nuked taxi companies, record stores, radio stations, bank tellers, and retail. We haven’t totally killed all those yet but we’re working on it, along with grocery stores and more. I agree that putting more computers in between people everywhere won’t be an entirely good thing, but there’s no denying that this is happening and has been happening everywhere we can pull it off. People hardly even talk to each other these days without computers in the middle.

by mfer 7y ago

libertine 7y ago

The sad thing, or at minimum odd thing, is that we're few years away from the positive differentiation factor being "you'll be talking to a human". In fact it should be made illegal to have people who's livelihood depend on a platform to be left at the hands of shit auto replies. If large scale comes at the cost of injustice, maybe large scale shouldn't be a thing. Youtube, Amazon Seller Central, and many others are terrible examples of what future holds for a lot of people.

nostrademons 7y ago
That's already the case in many industries - for many SaaS and telecom businesses the differentiator for expensive B2B plans is "24/7 support with a real human being", big IT companies like IBM and Oracle rely on "There's a human to blame when things go wrong" as their sole value prop, high-end retail like Nordstroms differentiates themselves from low-end retail like Walmart by the availability of personal sales assistants, and waiter-service restaurants differentiate themselves from McDonald's by the existence of a human who takes your order. The difference between Uber and a car service is whether the driver's waiting for you at baggage claim, greets you politely, and makes small talk on your way home. Personally I like it - I usually pick the self-checkouts, kiosks, and apps over talking with a real human being, who frequently acts like a robot anyway and tends to be slower and make mistakes more often. Also, I wonder if folks who say "if large scale comes at the cost of injustice, maybe large scale shouldn't be a thing" have really thought through the implications of this. I remember talking to a classmate in high school about Native American tribes, industrialization, American history, and how we really fucked over this idea of a tribe or village or community and the world was a lot less richer because of it. (This was pre-Internet - if only we could've guessed what the next 25 years would bring.) I agreed with all of his points, but then pointed out that the carrying capacity of the earth before modern agriculture, modern medicine, fossil fuels, etc. was roughly 1/20th what it is today, and did he really want to kill 95% of the people alive today? He responded, "Man, I feel shitty now." That's the nature of the scale vs. justice dilemma: you can't critically analyze scale & progress without also acknowledging the huge injustices it's created, but at the same time, reversing scale literally means death & suffering.
- yifanl 7y ago
  Not to be glib, but there's no indication that continuing to scale won't result in the same death & suffering. And yeah, I wouldn't be alive today (and probably would've never been born in the first place) if not for hyperindustrialization, but... I really wonder if that's a bad thing. Would the world be better off if after making a product more efficient, our first reaction wasn't "Great! Now we can scale up production!"?
- libertine 7y ago
  > I wonder if folks who say "if large scale comes at the cost of injustice, maybe large scale shouldn't be a thing" have really thought through the implications of this. I'm saying companies should be accountable for the loss they cause - if you're a Amazon Seller and you get your listing removed, you get an auto-reply and you try to talk to a human just to find a stream of auto-replies pasted together, because is in the sake of scale and progress the it's ok? Same goes for copyright claims on Youtube. You end up talking to auto-replies. Why should people livelihood be the cost to pay for scale? Why can't Google or Amazon pay people to supervise these replies and make amendments when the help is not only requested but required? I don't buy that "cost of progress" argument. I'm pro progress, I'm just against half baked solutions that seem to be progress but end up being cost saving measures. Why can't a user who got wrongfully harmed be compensated? Is that against scaling? Or shouldn't that be a cost of scale? Currently in my opinion it's irresponsibility. Irresponsibility disguised as Policy & Terms Agreements. At least in the EU Amazon is being pressured to cut this bullshit and act properly.
mfer 7y ago
Then maybe it's time to spend our money, time, and efforts with companies that aren't there.
- libertine 7y ago
  But that seems what's being done, yet at the cost of poor customer service. Why not guarantee proper customer service instead of forcing a half baked solution?
  - rad_gruchalski 7y ago
    Profit.

paxys 7y ago

All the businesses you mentioned still have core products that are now reliant on software - customer service, scheduling appointments, marketing, analytics/business decision making and lots more.

mfer 7y ago
The two auto shops I've used in recent years were cases where I called someone on the telephone. I don't know how they handle scheduling on their end. It wasn't part of the core interaction loop. Now that I think of it, the place I now prefer to go isn't just because they do good work but because of my human interactions with the people there. They were more personable. The experience felt better because of the people. None of the core part of my interaction required software. To continue the auto shop example, sure they use software for their invoices and to detect problems in vehicles. They don't have to do that for invoices. It's a choice. It's not in the critical path. Most small businesses shouldn't have to spend a ton of time marketing. That's outside their core work. Marketing takes on a variety of things including word of mouth. That will change over time and sure, people use software based ads. But, it's not required and not the core of the business.

unoti 7y ago

> When I think of businesses I think of the local auto repair shop, the restaurant around the corner, the paving company working on the roads, the local HVAC company around the corner from me, and the local gyms. That makes sense that you’re thinking of those local businesses. They’re the ones that are left after we nuked taxi companies, record stores, radio stations, bank tellers, and retail. We haven’t totally killed all those yet but we’re working on it, along with grocery stores and more. I agree that putting more computers in between people everywhere won’t be an entirely good thing, but there’s no denying that this is happening and has been happening everywhere we can pull it off. People hardly even talk to each other these days without computers in the middle.