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Regulation doesn’t make unprofitable businesses exist. If the business model is unviable with support those businesses will simply not exist or cost an amount o

by _3u10 5y ago

Regulation doesn’t make unprofitable businesses exist. If the business model is unviable with support those businesses will simply not exist or cost an amount of money that is unappealing.

oldsecondhand 5y ago
It's your baseless assumption that people are unwilling to pay money for these services.
- drivebycomment 5y ago
  It's not whether there are people who are willing to pay, but whether there are enough such people so that mandating this would not lead to substantially less number of services provided by companies such that society collectively will be worse off. I.e. a regulation like this proposal will raise the cost of business which ultimately consumers have to bear, and the question is how much cost it will increase overall and if the consequence of that increase is actually acceptable for the society. I don't know anybody knows the answer for sure - it's possible the cost increase is marginal and can be easily absorbed, but maybe not.
- _3u10 5y ago
  It’s your baseless assumption that it’s a baseless assumption. QED. You might want to lookup what the word if means. As a prime example look up peoples common complaints about airlines and then ask them why they don’t just fly first or business class, in most cases a cheaper price is favorable to most of the people complaining about airlines. I have a feeling that whatever services this guy is complaining about that a company offers a product that is much higher priced that includes knowledgeable and helpful support that they have simply chosen not to buy.
ironmagma 5y ago
Nowhere has it been shown that adding support people would make these companies unprofitable.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  I have worked with budgets at large companies with paid products and real human customer support. The cost of customer support is much, much bigger than people realize. For a low-margin business, a single customer support interaction might wipe out an entire year of profit. Even the most optimized ad-supported companies like Facebook have revenues (not profits, that's before expenses) in the range of a couple dollars per user per month. A typical ad-supported business might have profits as low as a couple pennies per user per month. A single customer support interaction that takes 5 total minutes could take years to recoup. I know people want to speak to someone, but the reality is that they like their $0 services even more.
  - ironmagma 5y ago
    If you are paying $0, you aren't a customer. You aren't a customer of Facebook typically, you are a user. Facebook does have customers, which are advertisers, and they get live support (unsurprisingly). [1] Besides, we really aren't talking about low-margin businesses. If you are a low-margin business, chances are, your overall impact on society is not that high, and the importance of regulating you is not high either. If we introduced regulations like this it would be restricted to businesses of a certain headcount and revenue, probably. [1] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2476867112525530?id=353836851981351 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2476867112525530?id=3...
  - mrguyorama 5y ago
    My company sells gift cards. Until we were purchased by a very large company, we had customer support agents from day one. They worked in the same office as me, and I was one the team that helped build tools for them to do their job. The cool thing about having real, talented human beings doing that job instead of some undertrained call center? We treated them as part of our Fraud department. Someone calls in and tries to illicitly get access to cards they don't own, and the support agent had the training and knowledge to often be able to spot that and prevent it. We didn't charge customers a cent for this privilege.

by _3u10 5y ago

Regulation doesn’t make unprofitable businesses exist. If the business model is unviable with support those businesses will simply not exist or cost an amount of money that is unappealing.

oldsecondhand 5y ago

It's your baseless assumption that people are unwilling to pay money for these services.

drivebycomment 5y ago
It's not whether there are people who are willing to pay, but whether there are enough such people so that mandating this would not lead to substantially less number of services provided by companies such that society collectively will be worse off. I.e. a regulation like this proposal will raise the cost of business which ultimately consumers have to bear, and the question is how much cost it will increase overall and if the consequence of that increase is actually acceptable for the society. I don't know anybody knows the answer for sure - it's possible the cost increase is marginal and can be easily absorbed, but maybe not.
_3u10 5y ago
It’s your baseless assumption that it’s a baseless assumption. QED. You might want to lookup what the word if means. As a prime example look up peoples common complaints about airlines and then ask them why they don’t just fly first or business class, in most cases a cheaper price is favorable to most of the people complaining about airlines. I have a feeling that whatever services this guy is complaining about that a company offers a product that is much higher priced that includes knowledgeable and helpful support that they have simply chosen not to buy.

ironmagma 5y ago

Nowhere has it been shown that adding support people would make these companies unprofitable.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
I have worked with budgets at large companies with paid products and real human customer support. The cost of customer support is much, much bigger than people realize. For a low-margin business, a single customer support interaction might wipe out an entire year of profit. Even the most optimized ad-supported companies like Facebook have revenues (not profits, that's before expenses) in the range of a couple dollars per user per month. A typical ad-supported business might have profits as low as a couple pennies per user per month. A single customer support interaction that takes 5 total minutes could take years to recoup. I know people want to speak to someone, but the reality is that they like their $0 services even more.
- ironmagma 5y ago
  If you are paying $0, you aren't a customer. You aren't a customer of Facebook typically, you are a user. Facebook does have customers, which are advertisers, and they get live support (unsurprisingly). [1] Besides, we really aren't talking about low-margin businesses. If you are a low-margin business, chances are, your overall impact on society is not that high, and the importance of regulating you is not high either. If we introduced regulations like this it would be restricted to businesses of a certain headcount and revenue, probably. [1] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2476867112525530?id=353836851981351 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2476867112525530?id=3...
- mrguyorama 5y ago
  My company sells gift cards. Until we were purchased by a very large company, we had customer support agents from day one. They worked in the same office as me, and I was one the team that helped build tools for them to do their job. The cool thing about having real, talented human beings doing that job instead of some undertrained call center? We treated them as part of our Fraud department. Someone calls in and tries to illicitly get access to cards they don't own, and the support agent had the training and knowledge to often be able to spot that and prevent it. We didn't charge customers a cent for this privilege.