3 ms·

The pre-widespread-Internet lifestyle relied on institutional support too: phone booths everywhere, banks that had humans willing to talk to you, paper checks.

by mbg721 6y ago

The pre-widespread-Internet lifestyle relied on institutional support too: phone booths everywhere, banks that had humans willing to talk to you, paper checks. Heck, I rented a car five years ago and asked who to contact if something went wrong, and they said "go to our website; no one answers the phone".

hilbert42 6y ago
You're absolutely right of course! I never said it would be easy and that institutional support would almost certainly have to be reintroduced. (I too am addicted to my computers and the internet. As I mentioned in a post below, it's just that those of us who've experienced both worldviews would likely adapt more easily). "...and they said "go to our website; no one answers the phone"." Right, don't start me on that, but I'll at least add the fact that you're far from being alone. The downgrading (or should that be 'downfall'?) of service and the loss of human interaction is, in my opinion, a truly serious problem. I recall an instance back in 2012 when a colleague and I spent 17 hours on the telephone over a period of five days (over a full working week) of trying to get a telco to solve an internet account problem (we had no internet access). Over days, we were shunted from one person to another in a call center in India, each time with the new contact not knowing what the previous one(s) had said or done. Late on Friday afternoon our problem had been escalated through the system to the point where we were transferred back across the international boundary onto local support for assistance (seems that all this was the necessary perquisite to speak to a local human). After being rerouted back home and pressing the correct button/number in the automatic answering system we were connected with a number that rang out without answering (there was no redirect to an answering service on no-answer). As the Indian operator didn't bother to stay on the line after transferring us, we weren't aware of the local phone number to call on the following Monday (likely that number wouldn't have been available to local customers anyway had we had the chance to ask—and perhaps, knowingly, he didn't stick around to avoid abuse from us when the local operator failed to answer). The matter was eventually resolved by other means but I won't waste your time with the details. We ought to be rioting in the streets over atrocious service like that to force politicians to enact laws that would guarantee users a minimum level of service, especially when there are few alternatives available as in this instance (here, the telco could easily have been considered a monopoly).

by mbg721 6y ago

hilbert42 6y ago

You're absolutely right of course! I never said it would be easy and that institutional support would almost certainly have to be reintroduced. (I too am addicted to my computers and the internet. As I mentioned in a post below, it's just that those of us who've experienced both worldviews would likely adapt more easily). "...and they said "go to our website; no one answers the phone"." Right, don't start me on that, but I'll at least add the fact that you're far from being alone. The downgrading (or should that be 'downfall'?) of service and the loss of human interaction is, in my opinion, a truly serious problem. I recall an instance back in 2012 when a colleague and I spent 17 hours on the telephone over a period of five days (over a full working week) of trying to get a telco to solve an internet account problem (we had no internet access). Over days, we were shunted from one person to another in a call center in India, each time with the new contact not knowing what the previous one(s) had said or done. Late on Friday afternoon our problem had been escalated through the system to the point where we were transferred back across the international boundary onto local support for assistance (seems that all this was the necessary perquisite to speak to a local human). After being rerouted back home and pressing the correct button/number in the automatic answering system we were connected with a number that rang out without answering (there was no redirect to an answering service on no-answer). As the Indian operator didn't bother to stay on the line after transferring us, we weren't aware of the local phone number to call on the following Monday (likely that number wouldn't have been available to local customers anyway had we had the chance to ask—and perhaps, knowingly, he didn't stick around to avoid abuse from us when the local operator failed to answer). The matter was eventually resolved by other means but I won't waste your time with the details. We ought to be rioting in the streets over atrocious service like that to force politicians to enact laws that would guarantee users a minimum level of service, especially when there are few alternatives available as in this instance (here, the telco could easily have been considered a monopoly).