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We need a new sub category [Support HN] when we need high level intervention from the CEO or at least a product manager. YC startups get an immediate notificati

We need a new sub category [Support HN] when we need high level intervention from the CEO or at least a product manager. YC startups get an immediate notification if their name shows up there.

andersa 3y ago
Feels like making this an official thing would immediately lead to it being abused so much that people will stop paying attention, like they do on other social media.
- mcherm 3y ago
  I have long had an idea that the best way to handle this is a community supported prioritization service. In other words, a community (hacker news, some subreddit, or perhaps an independent site) would invite people to post problems that ought to be easily solved by customer support except that the company is failing at customer support. Because problems tend to repeat themselves, the people who spend time on this forum would be able to identify (and sometimes provide workarounds for) the majority of cases -- all at no cost to the company that was failing at customer support. The remaining cases could be ranked by the community according to how egregious they were. Then the company that was failing at customer support could assign a tiny amount of actual attention to look at just the top few issues sorted by the community.
  - krger 3y ago
    > The remaining cases could be ranked by the community according to how egregious they were. It’s bad enough companies started outsourcing deciding which features to implement. I don’t want them also outsourcing deciding which cases to support.
    - mcherm 3y ago
      I think it would be better to outsource it than to simply NOT fix anything for any customers OR only fixing issues for customers who manage to get a lot of attention on Hacker News.
joshxyz 3y ago
i hope someone makes a bot then it just tweets where thread is linked, company and ceo is tagged
thih9 3y ago
I know this is most likely a joke but just in case: let’s not do this, it would basically be [Shame HN], because that’s what makes it work. Unless we find a way to turn it into some [AITA HN], so that it’s not just drama but also a bit of introspection.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  We should call it [HNSHITTIFY] to bring it full circle
- rzzzt 3y ago
  I agree, if this turns into something formal and compartmentalized it will be as easy to ignore as the official support channels.
thyrox 3y ago
Yes, these serve as a good warning for others who may be interested in exploring this service. HN threads also rank very highly on Google so even for future users researching the service may gain some value from it. Like I was interested in trying out fly.io for a long time but after reading so many recent threads about their mistreatment of users I've decided to defer. These threads are really very useful.
quickthrower2 3y ago
Just stop using these kinds of funky PaaS services. Use a boring host with a good track record who is not trying to make a VC rich. For other stuff use startups but for production hosting that you livelyhood depends on don’t.
- andybak 3y ago
  Services that are "trying to make a VC rich" are a double-edged sword. They are prone to "moving fast and breaking things", sudden business model pivots and dramatic pricing changes. On the other hand, they are often heavily subsided by aforementioned VCs in the name of building momentum. So if you use them cautiously with all this in mind, you can often treat it as an informal piece of redistributative taxation.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Yes. Certainly. But it depends if the savings make it worth the extra hassle. The venn diagram must have a small overlap. The other consideration is DX where these startup infras shine. They make it easy to deploy and that can be tempting. But I am not convinced it is that much easier. Learn the slightest amount of devops (a weekend) and you can script what they did for your usecase. Use github actions or whatever but not too much! Just get that to call a bash script that does what you want. I think there is a lot of value of trying to keep off locked in paths. But it is a delicate path to tread. And for startups growth is everything. But a few seconds of thought into tech choices and not just jumping into every freemium shiny tech is probably a good idea.

We need a new sub category [Support HN] when we need high level intervention from the CEO or at least a product manager. YC startups get an immediate notification if their name shows up there.

andersa 3y ago

Feels like making this an official thing would immediately lead to it being abused so much that people will stop paying attention, like they do on other social media.

mcherm 3y ago
I have long had an idea that the best way to handle this is a community supported prioritization service. In other words, a community (hacker news, some subreddit, or perhaps an independent site) would invite people to post problems that ought to be easily solved by customer support except that the company is failing at customer support. Because problems tend to repeat themselves, the people who spend time on this forum would be able to identify (and sometimes provide workarounds for) the majority of cases -- all at no cost to the company that was failing at customer support. The remaining cases could be ranked by the community according to how egregious they were. Then the company that was failing at customer support could assign a tiny amount of actual attention to look at just the top few issues sorted by the community.
- krger 3y ago
  > The remaining cases could be ranked by the community according to how egregious they were. It’s bad enough companies started outsourcing deciding which features to implement. I don’t want them also outsourcing deciding which cases to support.
  - mcherm 3y ago
    I think it would be better to outsource it than to simply NOT fix anything for any customers OR only fixing issues for customers who manage to get a lot of attention on Hacker News.

joshxyz 3y ago

i hope someone makes a bot then it just tweets where thread is linked, company and ceo is tagged

thih9 3y ago

I know this is most likely a joke but just in case: let’s not do this, it would basically be [Shame HN], because that’s what makes it work. Unless we find a way to turn it into some [AITA HN], so that it’s not just drama but also a bit of introspection.

yieldcrv 3y ago
We should call it [HNSHITTIFY] to bring it full circle
rzzzt 3y ago
I agree, if this turns into something formal and compartmentalized it will be as easy to ignore as the official support channels.

thyrox 3y ago

Yes, these serve as a good warning for others who may be interested in exploring this service. HN threads also rank very highly on Google so even for future users researching the service may gain some value from it. Like I was interested in trying out fly.io for a long time but after reading so many recent threads about their mistreatment of users I've decided to defer. These threads are really very useful.

quickthrower2 3y ago

Just stop using these kinds of funky PaaS services. Use a boring host with a good track record who is not trying to make a VC rich. For other stuff use startups but for production hosting that you livelyhood depends on don’t.

andybak 3y ago
Services that are "trying to make a VC rich" are a double-edged sword. They are prone to "moving fast and breaking things", sudden business model pivots and dramatic pricing changes. On the other hand, they are often heavily subsided by aforementioned VCs in the name of building momentum. So if you use them cautiously with all this in mind, you can often treat it as an informal piece of redistributative taxation.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Yes. Certainly. But it depends if the savings make it worth the extra hassle. The venn diagram must have a small overlap. The other consideration is DX where these startup infras shine. They make it easy to deploy and that can be tempting. But I am not convinced it is that much easier. Learn the slightest amount of devops (a weekend) and you can script what they did for your usecase. Use github actions or whatever but not too much! Just get that to call a bash script that does what you want. I think there is a lot of value of trying to keep off locked in paths. But it is a delicate path to tread. And for startups growth is everything. But a few seconds of thought into tech choices and not just jumping into every freemium shiny tech is probably a good idea.