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> There should absolutely be a "right to speak with a human", like a restaurant must pass health inspections, and other such things. > If they can't afford it

> There should absolutely be a "right to speak with a human", like a restaurant must pass health inspections, and other such things. > If they can't afford it as a basic cost of doing business, they can always close. If you're not paying for a service, are you even really a customer? Hacker News is free. Do you really expect to be able to pick up the phone and call someone at Y Combinator to discuss your Hacker News account? Do you really think it's a good idea to make this a legal right? Or how about GitHub? If they were obligated to provide phone support to anyone with an account, their only option would be to disable all free accounts. If you wanted to use GitHub, you'd have to get a paid account. The whole idea is ridiculous. Unless you want most of the free internet to disappear completely (or move overseas) then it's a non-starter.

pempem 5y ago
I think we can presume the author means: goods/services I have exchanged funds for. Additionally I would point out that Gmail makes plenty of money off our data and we all have written about or thought about how 'users are the product'. Not sure why there's seemingly a heightened emotional response here.
- msla 5y ago
  There's always an answer. If you don't pay for it: "You're not the customer, you're the product." If you do pay for it: "You get what you pay for." If you pay for it and have a contract specifying you will get it: "Not worth taking it to court." If you do take it to court: "We must stop all these frivolous lawsuits!" There is always an answer.
  - throwbigdata 5y ago
    Respectfully, you’re begging the question that it would be frivolous. If the contract says they must have a human respond within so much time and the company fails to do that, the lawsuit would not be frivolous to a rational person.
    - msla 5y ago
      It wouldn't be frivolous, it would be called frivolous. Like how the McDonald's coffee case was called frivolous even when it manifestly was not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau... > The plaintiff, Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old woman, suffered third-degree burns in her pelvic region when she accidentally spilled coffee in her lap after purchasing it from a McDonald's restaurant. She was hospitalized for eight days while undergoing skin grafting, followed by two years of medical treatment. [snip] > Liebeck's attorneys argued that coffee should never be served hotter than 140 °F (60 °C), and that a number of other establishments served coffee at a substantially lower temperature than McDonald's. The attorneys presented evidence that coffee they had tested all over the city was served at a temperature at least 20°F (11°C) lower than McDonald's coffee. They also presented the jury with expert testimony that 190 °F (88 °C) coffee may produce third-degree burns (where skin grafting is necessary) in about three seconds and 180 °F (82 °C) coffee may produce such burns in about twelve to fifteen seconds.
sillystuff 5y ago
A heuristic such as, right to speak with a human, if a) Customer pays for the service b) Service stores any data of the customer's (e.g., email provider, cloud storage provider, facebook, youtube, instagram, etc., but would need a threshold i.e., a simple throwaway comment would not have enough value to trigger, but an article, photo, or document would). c) Service acts as IdP where being locked out might result in being locked out of other services (e.g., "login with facebook/google", Okta, etc.) I am sure there are other cases I have missed, but this should give an idea. The problem will be in defining the rules specifically enough to address your concerns, yet vaguely enough that companies will not find ways to satisfy the letter of the law while violating the spirit. Yes, Github would fall into the categories above. If, as a result, Microsoft decided they no longer wanted to provide non-paid accounts, then so be it. Their business model was unsustainable if it could only work by abusing their users. Some things of value may be lost. This right to speak to a human should apply to non "web" companies too.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  What does speaking to a human accomplish? Your ticket was probably reviewed by a real person. If you called instead of ticketing, you'd talk to the same person, which now means responses would be slower because phone calls take more time than ticket handling. The phone person won't be any more empowered than the ticket person, so you'll still not have the issue resolved. The only difference is that there's a human to yell at.
  - sillystuff 5y ago
    Personally, I want a "human" option to be on the first menu of every phone robot menu. A site that only supports a web-based chat option would have to have humans at the other side rather than some crappy chatbot. 'Contact Us' pages should include email addresses that are monitored by humans. It would be a huge improvement if contact a human via any means was available at every company. But, having the last resort option to speak to a human even when there is the ability to reach a human via other modalities can be useful. There is a large "enterprise" company where the support folks always ignore everything I submit to the ticket, and then ask for all the things already provided. The only way to make progress with them is to get on a call. You are correct, it shouldn't be necessary-- but it is. And, if you do not have that last resort method, good luck. You may be stuck having to reply with the same information to a series of support folks without making progress on the case for weeks.
jjav 5y ago
> Or how about GitHub? If they were obligated to provide phone support to anyone with an account, their only option would be to disable all free accounts. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Sure, it's convenient to have a free github account. I get it, I have one. But what motivates github to give out free accounts? It is most definitely not that they are a benevolent company doing it as a free community service because they're nice. No, they do it for three main reasons: 1. Get individuals familiar with and hooked on the service so they'll promote it as a paid service at their workplace. 2. Build the network effect that helps them. "Everyone is on github", so you must be too. 3. Build a moat against up and coming possible competitors. If the baseline is free, it's harder for a newcomer to build revenue in that space to compete. All of these are self-serving interestes, they help github (which is fine) but they also hinder potential competition (not good) and build a tendency towards monopolistic services (very bad).
bcrl 5y ago
The internet isn't free; we pay with our privacy! I would be far happier if I could pay for random internet services with credits from my browser (possibly refilled by my ISP every month) rather than selling my privacy off to some unknown advertiser I never really wanted to be associated with if I actually knew what was going on. Micropayments built into the browser would really be an improvement and better align the interests of platforms with the interests of their users.
- FWKevents 5y ago
  I agree with you, but, unfortunately, research shows that only 5% of customers care that their privacy is being sold off. The rest don't care. Accuweather, for instance, (which is so lousy with ads that it compromises the experience of using the app,) offered a deal where you could pay $5/year and not be tracked or have ads. I took advantage of the offer. But so few others did that Accuweather cancelled the service. I guess it wasn't worth their trouble to keep track of who had paid and so didn't get ads for less than 5% of their users to sign on.
  - bcrl 5y ago
    I too won't bother to sign up for a $5 per year subscription to a website, as the pain of a potential credit card compromise is more than the $5/a subscription is worth. That's why I think it needs to go via a browser / ISP based system. Using credit cards is simply too much friction for micropayments. Give me one place to signup that covers the majority of websites that I use and it's a completely different value proposition.
coldtea 5y ago
>If you're not paying for a service, are you even really a customer? Places where you "don't pay" still have certain regulations they need to pass. If you give free food to people on the street (for some marketing event or charity or whatever) you still need to pass the cost of sanitary inspections and such. >Or how about GitHub? If they were obligated to provide phone support to anyone with an account, their only option would be to disable all free accounts. If you wanted to use GitHub, you'd have to get a paid account. The whole idea is ridiculous They way you've framed it, perhaps. Or maybe not. For one "If you wanted to use GitHub, you'd have to get a paid account" is not that ridiculous. It's how businesses worked since the dawn of time: people paid to get their services. If GitHub and every other "selling eyeballs" business is forced to come back to that, that's a win in my book. Second, notice the strawman phrasing: "If they were obligated to provide phone support to anyone with an account". How about them being forced to giving it to anyone with a PAID account?
- Handytinge 5y ago
  > For one "If you wanted to use GitHub, you'd have to get a paid account" is not that ridiculous. It's how businesses worked since the dawn of time: people paid to get their services. If GitHub and every other "selling eyeballs" business is forced to come back to that, that's a win in my book. It's not a win for the hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries who cannot justify the costing. The free account model has massive value to an unimaginable number of people in the world, whereas to those like you and I it's of minor benefit.

pempem 5y ago

I think we can presume the author means: goods/services I have exchanged funds for. Additionally I would point out that Gmail makes plenty of money off our data and we all have written about or thought about how 'users are the product'. Not sure why there's seemingly a heightened emotional response here.

msla 5y ago
There's always an answer. If you don't pay for it: "You're not the customer, you're the product." If you do pay for it: "You get what you pay for." If you pay for it and have a contract specifying you will get it: "Not worth taking it to court." If you do take it to court: "We must stop all these frivolous lawsuits!" There is always an answer.
- throwbigdata 5y ago
  Respectfully, you’re begging the question that it would be frivolous. If the contract says they must have a human respond within so much time and the company fails to do that, the lawsuit would not be frivolous to a rational person.
  - msla 5y ago
    It wouldn't be frivolous, it would be called frivolous. Like how the McDonald's coffee case was called frivolous even when it manifestly was not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau... > The plaintiff, Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old woman, suffered third-degree burns in her pelvic region when she accidentally spilled coffee in her lap after purchasing it from a McDonald's restaurant. She was hospitalized for eight days while undergoing skin grafting, followed by two years of medical treatment. [snip] > Liebeck's attorneys argued that coffee should never be served hotter than 140 °F (60 °C), and that a number of other establishments served coffee at a substantially lower temperature than McDonald's. The attorneys presented evidence that coffee they had tested all over the city was served at a temperature at least 20°F (11°C) lower than McDonald's coffee. They also presented the jury with expert testimony that 190 °F (88 °C) coffee may produce third-degree burns (where skin grafting is necessary) in about three seconds and 180 °F (82 °C) coffee may produce such burns in about twelve to fifteen seconds.

sillystuff 5y ago

A heuristic such as, right to speak with a human, if a) Customer pays for the service b) Service stores any data of the customer's (e.g., email provider, cloud storage provider, facebook, youtube, instagram, etc., but would need a threshold i.e., a simple throwaway comment would not have enough value to trigger, but an article, photo, or document would). c) Service acts as IdP where being locked out might result in being locked out of other services (e.g., "login with facebook/google", Okta, etc.) I am sure there are other cases I have missed, but this should give an idea. The problem will be in defining the rules specifically enough to address your concerns, yet vaguely enough that companies will not find ways to satisfy the letter of the law while violating the spirit. Yes, Github would fall into the categories above. If, as a result, Microsoft decided they no longer wanted to provide non-paid accounts, then so be it. Their business model was unsustainable if it could only work by abusing their users. Some things of value may be lost. This right to speak to a human should apply to non "web" companies too.

joshuamorton 5y ago
What does speaking to a human accomplish? Your ticket was probably reviewed by a real person. If you called instead of ticketing, you'd talk to the same person, which now means responses would be slower because phone calls take more time than ticket handling. The phone person won't be any more empowered than the ticket person, so you'll still not have the issue resolved. The only difference is that there's a human to yell at.
- sillystuff 5y ago
  Personally, I want a "human" option to be on the first menu of every phone robot menu. A site that only supports a web-based chat option would have to have humans at the other side rather than some crappy chatbot. 'Contact Us' pages should include email addresses that are monitored by humans. It would be a huge improvement if contact a human via any means was available at every company. But, having the last resort option to speak to a human even when there is the ability to reach a human via other modalities can be useful. There is a large "enterprise" company where the support folks always ignore everything I submit to the ticket, and then ask for all the things already provided. The only way to make progress with them is to get on a call. You are correct, it shouldn't be necessary-- but it is. And, if you do not have that last resort method, good luck. You may be stuck having to reply with the same information to a series of support folks without making progress on the case for weeks.

jjav 5y ago

> Or how about GitHub? If they were obligated to provide phone support to anyone with an account, their only option would be to disable all free accounts. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Sure, it's convenient to have a free github account. I get it, I have one. But what motivates github to give out free accounts? It is most definitely not that they are a benevolent company doing it as a free community service because they're nice. No, they do it for three main reasons: 1. Get individuals familiar with and hooked on the service so they'll promote it as a paid service at their workplace. 2. Build the network effect that helps them. "Everyone is on github", so you must be too. 3. Build a moat against up and coming possible competitors. If the baseline is free, it's harder for a newcomer to build revenue in that space to compete. All of these are self-serving interestes, they help github (which is fine) but they also hinder potential competition (not good) and build a tendency towards monopolistic services (very bad).

bcrl 5y ago

The internet isn't free; we pay with our privacy! I would be far happier if I could pay for random internet services with credits from my browser (possibly refilled by my ISP every month) rather than selling my privacy off to some unknown advertiser I never really wanted to be associated with if I actually knew what was going on. Micropayments built into the browser would really be an improvement and better align the interests of platforms with the interests of their users.

FWKevents 5y ago
I agree with you, but, unfortunately, research shows that only 5% of customers care that their privacy is being sold off. The rest don't care. Accuweather, for instance, (which is so lousy with ads that it compromises the experience of using the app,) offered a deal where you could pay $5/year and not be tracked or have ads. I took advantage of the offer. But so few others did that Accuweather cancelled the service. I guess it wasn't worth their trouble to keep track of who had paid and so didn't get ads for less than 5% of their users to sign on.
- bcrl 5y ago
  I too won't bother to sign up for a $5 per year subscription to a website, as the pain of a potential credit card compromise is more than the $5/a subscription is worth. That's why I think it needs to go via a browser / ISP based system. Using credit cards is simply too much friction for micropayments. Give me one place to signup that covers the majority of websites that I use and it's a completely different value proposition.

coldtea 5y ago

>If you're not paying for a service, are you even really a customer? Places where you "don't pay" still have certain regulations they need to pass. If you give free food to people on the street (for some marketing event or charity or whatever) you still need to pass the cost of sanitary inspections and such. >Or how about GitHub? If they were obligated to provide phone support to anyone with an account, their only option would be to disable all free accounts. If you wanted to use GitHub, you'd have to get a paid account. The whole idea is ridiculous They way you've framed it, perhaps. Or maybe not. For one "If you wanted to use GitHub, you'd have to get a paid account" is not that ridiculous. It's how businesses worked since the dawn of time: people paid to get their services. If GitHub and every other "selling eyeballs" business is forced to come back to that, that's a win in my book. Second, notice the strawman phrasing: "If they were obligated to provide phone support to anyone with an account". How about them being forced to giving it to anyone with a PAID account?

Handytinge 5y ago
> For one "If you wanted to use GitHub, you'd have to get a paid account" is not that ridiculous. It's how businesses worked since the dawn of time: people paid to get their services. If GitHub and every other "selling eyeballs" business is forced to come back to that, that's a win in my book. It's not a win for the hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries who cannot justify the costing. The free account model has massive value to an unimaginable number of people in the world, whereas to those like you and I it's of minor benefit.