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I'm not surprised the author can't convince LinkedIn to change anything. Had a similar experience with Tinder where Paying in their web application using a dani

I'm not surprised the author can't convince LinkedIn to change anything. Had a similar experience with Tinder where Paying in their web application using a danish credit card failed because their cc service returned "visadankort", which had to be changed to "visa" through the developer console for the payment to go through. Got tired of that and filed a bug. Oh the battle it took to actually convince them that an entire country is unable to pay in the web app using their de facto credit card.

smt88 6y ago
I'd have to assume "supporting Danish credit cards" is lower on their list of revenue-impacting issues than you expect. If Denmark were a US state, it wouldn't even be in the top 20 in terms of population. If you assume that Denmark has lower usage of Tinder than US, CA, or UK, and then you assume that not all Danish people are paying with Danish credit cards (many of them would be using Play Store subscriptions, which seems like it would bypass the issue you're describing), the affected population is probably really small. Then you also have to consider that most of Tinder's paying users are heterosexual men, and they know that they can screw those men over without losing their business because Tinder is an irreplaceable marketplace to find women. With all those assumptions, Tinder isn't being as stupid as they sound, but rather coldly rational.
- johannes1234321 6y ago
  The question is what the cost of that fix would be. Once the ticket reaches the developer it's probably quickly done and pays for itself with a handful registrations. However getting from support to a developer is the complex part. (Support has to understand the issue and then it has to be routed to the correct team ...)
  - smt88 6y ago
    I completely understand why you see this as a 30-min fix, and therefore they should just knock it out. That's not how they would likely see it. If their devs are 100% utilized (which I'm sure they are), then fixing any issue -- even a 30-min one -- is going to mean that a different issue is delayed. The question becomes this: at what point is fixing this issue more valuable to the company than any other issue the same dev could work on? And the answer is possibly "never", depending on what high-impact bugs, features, or technical debt they have on their priority list.
    - varjag 6y ago
      You rationalize dysfunction into a strategy. It's not like they are doing Moon landing there 24/7. It's a simple bug with direct impact on the revenue. They should take a half hour break and fix it.
      - korla 6y ago
        I think you vastly oversimplify how easy this fix is likely to be. For all we know this may mean touching code in multiple repos, each with hard-coded lists of which cards are supported for some case or another. At least that is what it would mean to change something like this where I am now.
        varjag 6y ago
        Oh wow, editing a hard coded list. Does one need a chisel for that?
        jedberg 6y ago
        That is not how things work in the real world. Sure, the fix itself might take 30 minutes. But then you have to validate it. And run a canary. And crosscheck your revenue numbers to make sure it didn't have an adverse affect elsewhere. That's a lot of work for something that will probably mean very little extra revenue.
        varjag 6y ago
        I assume they already have the quality assurance pipeline in place at Tinder and don't need to reinvent it from scratch for every bug report.
        jedberg 6y ago
        Of course they do. But it still takes time, effort, and resources to run through the QA pipeline.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  It's not "coldly rational" if your fix is simple enough that can be fixed on the browser console and charging CCs directly avoid the 30% fee of the store (though Tinder does seem to tack that to the app store price)
- reaperducer 6y ago
  lower on their list of revenue-impacting issues Some companies do what's right. Some only prioritize based on revenue maximization. Locking out an entire country is clearly wrong. Only prioritizing for revenue maximization is only ambiguously right. It's not like fixing a bug is going to bankrupt Tinder.
  - smt88 6y ago
    1. This isn't locking out an entire country. 2. Tinder is constantly at war with bots and scammers. You have no way to know that fixing a CC issue for a tiny fraction of users is more ethical than their other bugs.
- specialist 6y ago
  That's like using poor ROI to argue against curb cuts. There are intangible, non-quantifiable benefits to doing things better. Our inability to concoct a price is not a defensible reason to let entropy and chaos win. Sometimes Freedom Markets™ just need some TLC.
- xmprt 6y ago
  Companies spend thousands on things that have dubious impact on the bottom line. This is something that has a direct and measurable impact. If the solution for the parent commenter was as simple as changing something in developer console, then the change for tinder shouldn't take more than a few days or a week.
- anonunivgrad 6y ago
  This kind of hyper-optimization misses the forest for the trees. You need to have some love for your product and if you do, you do not let issues like this fester. Your bean counters can’t capture the full complexity of the world. They can’t capture the general sense of “shittiness” that users feel when your product fails in stupid ways and you don’t fix it. They can’t appreciate how that feeling snowballs into the success of a competitor five or ten years down the line.
- fsociety 6y ago
  I dunno it’s more about the principle of not fixing the product. I think software teams would benefit greatly by setting principles that they follow instead of justifying everything by revenue. Not saying you support the revenue-only model btw :)
chuckSu 6y ago
Don’t leave us hanging. Did you find your future wifey/hubby/partner :-)
YawningAngel 6y ago
If it helps, every foreigner visiting Denmark has a similar experience in reverse when we try to pay with our Visa cards :P

smt88 6y ago

I'd have to assume "supporting Danish credit cards" is lower on their list of revenue-impacting issues than you expect. If Denmark were a US state, it wouldn't even be in the top 20 in terms of population. If you assume that Denmark has lower usage of Tinder than US, CA, or UK, and then you assume that not all Danish people are paying with Danish credit cards (many of them would be using Play Store subscriptions, which seems like it would bypass the issue you're describing), the affected population is probably really small. Then you also have to consider that most of Tinder's paying users are heterosexual men, and they know that they can screw those men over without losing their business because Tinder is an irreplaceable marketplace to find women. With all those assumptions, Tinder isn't being as stupid as they sound, but rather coldly rational.

johannes1234321 6y ago
The question is what the cost of that fix would be. Once the ticket reaches the developer it's probably quickly done and pays for itself with a handful registrations. However getting from support to a developer is the complex part. (Support has to understand the issue and then it has to be routed to the correct team ...)
- smt88 6y ago
  I completely understand why you see this as a 30-min fix, and therefore they should just knock it out. That's not how they would likely see it. If their devs are 100% utilized (which I'm sure they are), then fixing any issue -- even a 30-min one -- is going to mean that a different issue is delayed. The question becomes this: at what point is fixing this issue more valuable to the company than any other issue the same dev could work on? And the answer is possibly "never", depending on what high-impact bugs, features, or technical debt they have on their priority list.
  - varjag 6y ago
    You rationalize dysfunction into a strategy. It's not like they are doing Moon landing there 24/7. It's a simple bug with direct impact on the revenue. They should take a half hour break and fix it.
    - korla 6y ago
      I think you vastly oversimplify how easy this fix is likely to be. For all we know this may mean touching code in multiple repos, each with hard-coded lists of which cards are supported for some case or another. At least that is what it would mean to change something like this where I am now.
      - varjag 6y ago
        Oh wow, editing a hard coded list. Does one need a chisel for that?
        jedberg 6y ago
        That is not how things work in the real world. Sure, the fix itself might take 30 minutes. But then you have to validate it. And run a canary. And crosscheck your revenue numbers to make sure it didn't have an adverse affect elsewhere. That's a lot of work for something that will probably mean very little extra revenue.
        varjag 6y ago
        I assume they already have the quality assurance pipeline in place at Tinder and don't need to reinvent it from scratch for every bug report.
        jedberg 6y ago
        Of course they do. But it still takes time, effort, and resources to run through the QA pipeline.
raverbashing 6y ago
It's not "coldly rational" if your fix is simple enough that can be fixed on the browser console and charging CCs directly avoid the 30% fee of the store (though Tinder does seem to tack that to the app store price)
reaperducer 6y ago
lower on their list of revenue-impacting issues Some companies do what's right. Some only prioritize based on revenue maximization. Locking out an entire country is clearly wrong. Only prioritizing for revenue maximization is only ambiguously right. It's not like fixing a bug is going to bankrupt Tinder.
- smt88 6y ago
  1. This isn't locking out an entire country. 2. Tinder is constantly at war with bots and scammers. You have no way to know that fixing a CC issue for a tiny fraction of users is more ethical than their other bugs.
specialist 6y ago
That's like using poor ROI to argue against curb cuts. There are intangible, non-quantifiable benefits to doing things better. Our inability to concoct a price is not a defensible reason to let entropy and chaos win. Sometimes Freedom Markets™ just need some TLC.
xmprt 6y ago
Companies spend thousands on things that have dubious impact on the bottom line. This is something that has a direct and measurable impact. If the solution for the parent commenter was as simple as changing something in developer console, then the change for tinder shouldn't take more than a few days or a week.
anonunivgrad 6y ago
This kind of hyper-optimization misses the forest for the trees. You need to have some love for your product and if you do, you do not let issues like this fester. Your bean counters can’t capture the full complexity of the world. They can’t capture the general sense of “shittiness” that users feel when your product fails in stupid ways and you don’t fix it. They can’t appreciate how that feeling snowballs into the success of a competitor five or ten years down the line.
fsociety 6y ago
I dunno it’s more about the principle of not fixing the product. I think software teams would benefit greatly by setting principles that they follow instead of justifying everything by revenue. Not saying you support the revenue-only model btw :)

chuckSu 6y ago

Don’t leave us hanging. Did you find your future wifey/hubby/partner :-)

YawningAngel 6y ago

If it helps, every foreigner visiting Denmark has a similar experience in reverse when we try to pay with our Visa cards :P