6 ms·

If anything, the amount of shadow work foisted on customers has increased. Somehow it's a norm to have to go through a bunch of bullshit to have errors correcte

by ellius 7y ago

If anything, the amount of shadow work foisted on customers has increased. Somehow it's a norm to have to go through a bunch of bullshit to have errors corrected and often just to get halfway decent service. It's obviously worse in industries without meaningful competition, but society in general seems to put up with it and assume that's just the way it is.

tehwebguy 7y ago
Yes - it is not illegal or even unlawful for a doctor, an insurance company, a utility like a power / phone / water company to send you a grossly incorrect bill and cause you dozens of hours of work to get them to see THEIR mistake. If our Internet cuts out and I have to call in to get it fixed I calmly but firmly let them know that I must be fully credited for the day, pro rata. They always have beef with this and tell me that “normally they don’t do X or Y unless A or B”. I tell them that I fully understand their position, but my position is this: “When I hang up this phone call it will either be because you have credited me for the day that my service failed and I had to do your company’s job debugging it, or because I have terminated my service. The choice is yours but those are the only options.”
- DataWorker 7y ago
  That’s how I wound up reverting to DSL service for a year. The invisible hand can’t grasp monopolies.
  - tehwebguy 7y ago
    Yeah, this is not doable in most US cities I’d guess.
    - jopsen 7y ago
      The sales people will often give you discounts if you ask, or pretend that you might cancel :)
  - pitaj 7y ago
    Don't blame "the invisible hand" (the market) for those monopolies. Utilities like water, gas, and electricity are monopolized by the state: torn away from the market's invisible hand. Internet providers use government regulations, not available market forces, to keep out competitors.
    - DataWorker 7y ago
      What’s free mean when talking about markets exactly? Free from what?
      - cameronbrown 7y ago
        Regulatory capture I'd guess.
      - pitaj 7y ago
        An ideal free market is one is which no coercion occurs, including state coercion like regulations and taxes, and private coercion like theft and fraud. Colloquially, a free market refers to one in which a minimal amount of government intervention occurs. The less state intervention, the more free the market.
        NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        No, that just gives rise to corrupt capitalism. Like expecting law and order without police and courts. Without regulation and strong intervention against problematic companies cartels, profiteering, monopoly and all the other problems of unconstrained capitalism tend to result. Standards will fall, prices will rise, deals will be done on golf courses and in (formerly) smoke filled bars against the interests of the customers. The best markets are ones that have a clear market, and are kept free and ethical by strong and appropriate oversight (government). Needless to say there are many markets that are not appropriate uses of the market, and oversight does not work too well with a revolving door between commerce and regulator, smoothed by filthy lucre.
        tomp 7y ago
        There’s a number of problems that can occur in markets without any coertion - e.g. principal - agent problem, or asymmetric information - that make a market less efficient and thus worse for paricipants. The job of the government is to work to prevent those, even with coertion if necessary (e.g. fiduciary laws, food standards, ...). There’s a tradeoff between too few laws (reducing market participants’ confidence in the goods/services they buy) and too many laws (increasing barriers to entry and causing monopolies).
ljm 7y ago
I think this might be the service side of shrinkflation.
nickjj 7y ago
Yeah, and it all starts with calling into a place to be greeted by a horribly inefficient "automated" phone system where you need to spend 10 minutes navigating menus that can't detect voice correctly. It puts 100% of the burden on the customer to save the company time and it seems every company does it. I remember spending close to 5 hours 1 day trying to get health insurance where it was just a combination of automated phone options, waiting on hold, being redirected, waiting again, and in the end within 15 seconds of finally getting to a human I was disconnected (I was 100% calm too, they were just asking for my details). And then after thinking "fuck this shit, I'm never buying insurance again" I got the luxury of having to pay over $5,000 in fines for not having health insurance for 2017-2018's tax year. I don't understand why society puts up with this stuff and unfortunately 1 person can't make a difference.
LanceH 7y ago
This is nothing compared to health insurance billing processes in the US. They work damn hard to tell you that you owe something, but the second you pay them they stop trying to make things right.
Jesus_piece 7y ago
> If anything, the amount of shadow work foisted on customers has increased. Somehow it's a norm to have to go through a bunch of bullshit to have errors corrected and often just to get halfway decent service. It's obviously worse in industries without meaningful competition, but society in general seems to put up with it and assume that's just the way it is. Worst offender who does this? US Healthcare

by ellius 7y ago

tehwebguy 7y ago

Yes - it is not illegal or even unlawful for a doctor, an insurance company, a utility like a power / phone / water company to send you a grossly incorrect bill and cause you dozens of hours of work to get them to see THEIR mistake. If our Internet cuts out and I have to call in to get it fixed I calmly but firmly let them know that I must be fully credited for the day, pro rata. They always have beef with this and tell me that “normally they don’t do X or Y unless A or B”. I tell them that I fully understand their position, but my position is this: “When I hang up this phone call it will either be because you have credited me for the day that my service failed and I had to do your company’s job debugging it, or because I have terminated my service. The choice is yours but those are the only options.”

DataWorker 7y ago
That’s how I wound up reverting to DSL service for a year. The invisible hand can’t grasp monopolies.
- tehwebguy 7y ago
  Yeah, this is not doable in most US cities I’d guess.
  - jopsen 7y ago
    The sales people will often give you discounts if you ask, or pretend that you might cancel :)
- pitaj 7y ago
  Don't blame "the invisible hand" (the market) for those monopolies. Utilities like water, gas, and electricity are monopolized by the state: torn away from the market's invisible hand. Internet providers use government regulations, not available market forces, to keep out competitors.
  - DataWorker 7y ago
    What’s free mean when talking about markets exactly? Free from what?
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      Regulatory capture I'd guess.
    - pitaj 7y ago
      An ideal free market is one is which no coercion occurs, including state coercion like regulations and taxes, and private coercion like theft and fraud. Colloquially, a free market refers to one in which a minimal amount of government intervention occurs. The less state intervention, the more free the market.
      - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        No, that just gives rise to corrupt capitalism. Like expecting law and order without police and courts. Without regulation and strong intervention against problematic companies cartels, profiteering, monopoly and all the other problems of unconstrained capitalism tend to result. Standards will fall, prices will rise, deals will be done on golf courses and in (formerly) smoke filled bars against the interests of the customers. The best markets are ones that have a clear market, and are kept free and ethical by strong and appropriate oversight (government). Needless to say there are many markets that are not appropriate uses of the market, and oversight does not work too well with a revolving door between commerce and regulator, smoothed by filthy lucre.
      - tomp 7y ago
        There’s a number of problems that can occur in markets without any coertion - e.g. principal - agent problem, or asymmetric information - that make a market less efficient and thus worse for paricipants. The job of the government is to work to prevent those, even with coertion if necessary (e.g. fiduciary laws, food standards, ...). There’s a tradeoff between too few laws (reducing market participants’ confidence in the goods/services they buy) and too many laws (increasing barriers to entry and causing monopolies).

ljm 7y ago

I think this might be the service side of shrinkflation.

nickjj 7y ago

Yeah, and it all starts with calling into a place to be greeted by a horribly inefficient "automated" phone system where you need to spend 10 minutes navigating menus that can't detect voice correctly. It puts 100% of the burden on the customer to save the company time and it seems every company does it. I remember spending close to 5 hours 1 day trying to get health insurance where it was just a combination of automated phone options, waiting on hold, being redirected, waiting again, and in the end within 15 seconds of finally getting to a human I was disconnected (I was 100% calm too, they were just asking for my details). And then after thinking "fuck this shit, I'm never buying insurance again" I got the luxury of having to pay over $5,000 in fines for not having health insurance for 2017-2018's tax year. I don't understand why society puts up with this stuff and unfortunately 1 person can't make a difference.

LanceH 7y ago

This is nothing compared to health insurance billing processes in the US. They work damn hard to tell you that you owe something, but the second you pay them they stop trying to make things right.

Jesus_piece 7y ago

> If anything, the amount of shadow work foisted on customers has increased. Somehow it's a norm to have to go through a bunch of bullshit to have errors corrected and often just to get halfway decent service. It's obviously worse in industries without meaningful competition, but society in general seems to put up with it and assume that's just the way it is. Worst offender who does this? US Healthcare