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Doesn’t that just mean that the company is externalising its costs and privatising the profits? Frankly, I think this is the problem that needs to be solved.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Doesn’t that just mean that the company is externalising its costs and privatising the profits? On its own, no. Rasberry Pi not providing phone support isn't externalising any costs.
- doctor_eval 2y ago
  TFA is explicitly about Facebook externalising its support costs to small claims courts. If RPI was accused of the same thing, I'd feel the same way. Anyway, as I understand it, RPI externalises support costs to retailers. I can certainly call my RPI supplier and talk to someone. Externalising commercially is totally fine, externalising to the public is up there with pollution, perhaps a kind of tragedy of the commons.
  - josephg 2y ago
    I think part of the "deal" with free services like GMail, Facebook, Whatsapp, twitter, and so on is that the services only work financially because there isn't any customer support. If you forget your password, or your account gets hijacked or something, well, you don't actually make the companies enough money to take your troubles seriously. Arguably, this is fine so long as the customer knows in advance that that's the deal (hence the EULA). And I think the courts acting as a back stop for that is a good thing. (Though I'd want Meta to foot the bill for the court's costs if they're found to be in the wrong). Maybe another approach would be for Meta, Google, etc to charge customers for customer support. "Hotmail is free. If anything happens and only a human can fix the problem, it'll cost you $2/minute to talk to our service reps. So we don't have weird incentives, we set the price so our call center breaks even exactly - we do not profit from having a bad service. If the problem turns out to be due to a bug on our site, at the rep's discretion they can refund the money. You can speak to a human whenever you want, but call centers aren't free. You have to pay us to do so."
    - doctor_eval 2y ago
      I don't disagree with that, the main problem is that such a service doesn't exist, and so it goes to the public purse instead.
    - bsder 2y ago
      Except that because they are "free", they drive out any semblance of competition which would serve as a check on the super shitty customer service. As an alternative solution, I'm all for splitting up Meta, Google, etc for being anti-competitive. If Gmail, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Hotmail, etc. all had to stand on their own without being able to share revenue from other sections of the company, the "free to prevent competition" would go into the trash can where it belongs.
hanniabu 2y ago
That's the American way
dfadsadsf 2y ago
Small claim courts has filing fees and courts mostly pay for themselves. There is no real externalized costs other than to users who do not have reasonable way to recover their account. That's the deal with using ad supported services.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Doesn’t that just mean that the company is externalising its costs and privatising the profits? On its own, no. Rasberry Pi not providing phone support isn't externalising any costs.

doctor_eval 2y ago
TFA is explicitly about Facebook externalising its support costs to small claims courts. If RPI was accused of the same thing, I'd feel the same way. Anyway, as I understand it, RPI externalises support costs to retailers. I can certainly call my RPI supplier and talk to someone. Externalising commercially is totally fine, externalising to the public is up there with pollution, perhaps a kind of tragedy of the commons.
- josephg 2y ago
  I think part of the "deal" with free services like GMail, Facebook, Whatsapp, twitter, and so on is that the services only work financially because there isn't any customer support. If you forget your password, or your account gets hijacked or something, well, you don't actually make the companies enough money to take your troubles seriously. Arguably, this is fine so long as the customer knows in advance that that's the deal (hence the EULA). And I think the courts acting as a back stop for that is a good thing. (Though I'd want Meta to foot the bill for the court's costs if they're found to be in the wrong). Maybe another approach would be for Meta, Google, etc to charge customers for customer support. "Hotmail is free. If anything happens and only a human can fix the problem, it'll cost you $2/minute to talk to our service reps. So we don't have weird incentives, we set the price so our call center breaks even exactly - we do not profit from having a bad service. If the problem turns out to be due to a bug on our site, at the rep's discretion they can refund the money. You can speak to a human whenever you want, but call centers aren't free. You have to pay us to do so."
  - doctor_eval 2y ago
    I don't disagree with that, the main problem is that such a service doesn't exist, and so it goes to the public purse instead.
  - bsder 2y ago
    Except that because they are "free", they drive out any semblance of competition which would serve as a check on the super shitty customer service. As an alternative solution, I'm all for splitting up Meta, Google, etc for being anti-competitive. If Gmail, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Hotmail, etc. all had to stand on their own without being able to share revenue from other sections of the company, the "free to prevent competition" would go into the trash can where it belongs.

hanniabu 2y ago

That's the American way

dfadsadsf 2y ago

Small claim courts has filing fees and courts mostly pay for themselves. There is no real externalized costs other than to users who do not have reasonable way to recover their account. That's the deal with using ad supported services.