4 ms·
> "By design we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership." I'd almost respect them more if they said "Okay,
by dane-pgp 4y ago
> "By design we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership."
I'd almost respect them more if they said "Okay, you got us, we deliberately added as many complicated steps as possible to minimise the number of people who successfully cancelled".
There needs to be a Freedom of Information Act which applies to large companies, requiring them to record all the decisions they make, the goals they set, and the metrics they use to achieve them.
Of course most of the data will be commercially sensitive, but if a company refuses on those grounds, the requester should be able to appeal to an ombudsman who will check whether there is a public interest in disclosure, or whether the data needs to be sent to the relevant regulator for further investigation.
Requesters would have to pay some fee for such an appeal (perhaps 100 x minimum hourly wage) which would be paid back double if the appeal was upheld. This could create the right sort of incentives for whistleblowers, and the appeal fee could be crowdfunded to make it more affordable.
- throwaways85989 4y agoIt needs to be even more standardized. So far in fact, that it could be part of a API, that could be handled by software, so that a robot could cancel the contract for the user. User should be able to create and cancel contracts via automated negotiation.
- thechao 4y agoI always thought that all govt processes — high to low — should have an API for filing paperwork, with a publically available "wirk queue" that anyone could query. The govt would be mandated to use its own APIs, and motion in the queue would require publically available information. It always ends up looking like a snazzier version of Brazil, in my head.
- DaiPlusPlus 4y agoI assume you're referring to how AWS got started?
- saagarjha 4y agoCompanies will generally stop keeping records if this is the case.
- setr 4y agoJust do like a parking garage — if you’ve lost your ticket, fine for the worst case.
- yardstick 4y agoI once used a car park to store my car for several days, without taking it out, and it was cheaper to lose my ticket and pay the fine vs paying the full amount. Because the fine was the 24hr price, vs the actual duration of 5-6 days.
- capableweb 4y agoWas this before "automated" car parks or they don't have that where you live? Where I live, all car parks automatically registers every single car that enters, and if I lose my ticket, I get a "fine" (extra cost) + the duration I was parked, as they'll just lookup when I arrived via the license plate.
- er4hn 4y agoWhy do they even have tickets if they can look up when you entered?
- capableweb 4y agoIf you have the ticket you can "self-checkout" by going to the machine to pay, not involving others. If you don't, you need to speak with the person who "manages" the parking lot, the person who sits in the little booth. Some cars also have (something like) a bank/credit card attached to their front windows near the top, those people can just drive out and the payment is automatic right before the barrier that blocks the exit.