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Exactly! The OP’s surprisal is surprising, given that 95% of all support interactions across the board are exactly like this. In fact, the internal support - i.

Exactly! The OP’s surprisal is surprising, given that 95% of all support interactions across the board are exactly like this. In fact, the internal support - i.e. the support for employees is just as bad and nonsensical. It goes pretty much like this. If your problem needs “reasoning” that entails more than matching a direct solution, you’re getting the default answer that’s the closest match to the solution. The only difference between live support and support docs is that live support has access to some of your data and controls over some flows (e.g. reset password) Now the real kick - it’s like this across the board outside of tech. If you go to a hospital with a problem that is not the 95 or 99 or whatever they are “tuned” to deal with, your pretty much fucked, unless you can be resourceful or luck enough to navigate the structure until you find someone that actually knows how to. Bureaucracies? Same. It’s effectively the same dumb machinery with dumb human cogs that you’re always dealing with. I think it’s simply the “limit” of average human intelligence and find it hard to believe AI will end up being dumber than this.

mikekaganski 1y ago
> The OP’s surprisal is surprising, given that 95% of all support interactions across the board are exactly like this If your point is "it is today's norm, let's accept it and shut up", I feel the opposite. If the "norm" is like that, expressing it aloud is my way of contributing to society.
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  That is clearly not his point.
bigbacaloa 1y ago
[dead]
sam_lowry_ 1y ago
Nexus by Yuval Harari covers bureaucracy in the same vein.
tarsinge 1y ago
Bureaucracy didn’t emerge in the 21th, contrary to lack of customer support for big companies. Bureaucracy is a symptom part of the enshittification, the root cause is Monopoly (direct or through organized shareholders across an industry). You don’t need support or good service when customers don’t have the choice to go elsewhere.
- danaris 1y ago
  I would even go a step further, and say that bureaucracy, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. It is a natural and inevitable consequence of a large organization: you need more measures in place to keep track of things when there are too many for people to keep track of in their heads. The problem arises when the bureaucracy becomes, at least for portions of the organization, the end in itself rather than a means to an end (the end being something like better service, efficiency, and accountability). That's when it starts to contribute to frustrations and bad experiences (and, if allowed to continue in this vein, enshittification).
  - random3 1y ago
    Yes. In fact I was referring to bureaucracies in general as a state’s “support” organization.
- mcosta 1y ago
  They can go elsewhere , but then they would have to pay. And users hate to pay when there is a free offer.
- drewcoo 1y ago
  > Bureaucracy is a symptom part of the enshittification Bureaucracy does not cause things to get worse. It's not a bad rash that the system displays when it's about to get worse or the puss discharged when it's irritated. Bureaucracy is a response to a system that works well. It adds rules and hierarchies and red tape to maintain the system state as it is. It's organizational glue. Bureaucracy is only a problem when trying to change a system.
samrus 1y ago
Thats last part is either naive or just shilling. The problems isnt the cogs, its the business owners setting up the incentives. Providing reasoned support is expensive from a time and effort perspective, so they dont invest in it. Service reps are specifically trained and incentivized to just fuzzy match the SOPs And AI cant reason either, so it wont be able to provide any real reasoned support either. And the pwners dont care because they already provide shit service, people like you will just hype the AI up and then make excuses for it when its just as shit
- random3 1y ago
  Shilling what? AI in general? What’s the incentive? Hype is harder to argue. LLMs are defective attempts at AI, but that’s also a huge blind spot— effectively confounding AI and AI progress with a specific instance like LLMs. Business incentive— if you can make an argument on why would a corporation provide shit support to its own employees you win. Also make an argument on why support is actually good at Amazon and others like them. So I don’t buy your argument on incentives either. Although there are other implications related to incentives and AI in general, but those are off topic.
- ethbr1 1y ago
  The part that seems to be missing these days, that was historically present in support orgs, is escalation. You’re always going to do the bulk of support through L1, and L1 support is going to be limited in terms of training and access. But! The intended flow is that L1 recognizes when an issue exceeds their ability and escalates it up to L2+. And that’s where your talented (and empowered!) support engineers work. That escalation just doesn’t seem to happen any more. My hypothesis is that it’s a consequence of L1 being outsourced, where now they’re heavily incentivized to avoid escalating and impacting their probably-contractual KPIs. Yet another cost for adding too many parties to something that could be better if it were simpler.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    > Yet another cost for adding too many parties to something that could be better if it were simpler. But its not a cost from the perspective of the companies doj the outsourcing: the incentives are the way they are because the result is intended. Its not a cost of adding an extra party, it is part of the reason the party is added.

mikekaganski 1y ago

> The OP’s surprisal is surprising, given that 95% of all support interactions across the board are exactly like this If your point is "it is today's norm, let's accept it and shut up", I feel the opposite. If the "norm" is like that, expressing it aloud is my way of contributing to society.

carlosjobim 1y ago
That is clearly not his point.

bigbacaloa 1y ago

[dead]

sam_lowry_ 1y ago

Nexus by Yuval Harari covers bureaucracy in the same vein.

tarsinge 1y ago

Bureaucracy didn’t emerge in the 21th, contrary to lack of customer support for big companies. Bureaucracy is a symptom part of the enshittification, the root cause is Monopoly (direct or through organized shareholders across an industry). You don’t need support or good service when customers don’t have the choice to go elsewhere.

danaris 1y ago
I would even go a step further, and say that bureaucracy, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. It is a natural and inevitable consequence of a large organization: you need more measures in place to keep track of things when there are too many for people to keep track of in their heads. The problem arises when the bureaucracy becomes, at least for portions of the organization, the end in itself rather than a means to an end (the end being something like better service, efficiency, and accountability). That's when it starts to contribute to frustrations and bad experiences (and, if allowed to continue in this vein, enshittification).
- random3 1y ago
  Yes. In fact I was referring to bureaucracies in general as a state’s “support” organization.
mcosta 1y ago
They can go elsewhere , but then they would have to pay. And users hate to pay when there is a free offer.
drewcoo 1y ago
> Bureaucracy is a symptom part of the enshittification Bureaucracy does not cause things to get worse. It's not a bad rash that the system displays when it's about to get worse or the puss discharged when it's irritated. Bureaucracy is a response to a system that works well. It adds rules and hierarchies and red tape to maintain the system state as it is. It's organizational glue. Bureaucracy is only a problem when trying to change a system.

samrus 1y ago

Thats last part is either naive or just shilling. The problems isnt the cogs, its the business owners setting up the incentives. Providing reasoned support is expensive from a time and effort perspective, so they dont invest in it. Service reps are specifically trained and incentivized to just fuzzy match the SOPs And AI cant reason either, so it wont be able to provide any real reasoned support either. And the pwners dont care because they already provide shit service, people like you will just hype the AI up and then make excuses for it when its just as shit

random3 1y ago
Shilling what? AI in general? What’s the incentive? Hype is harder to argue. LLMs are defective attempts at AI, but that’s also a huge blind spot— effectively confounding AI and AI progress with a specific instance like LLMs. Business incentive— if you can make an argument on why would a corporation provide shit support to its own employees you win. Also make an argument on why support is actually good at Amazon and others like them. So I don’t buy your argument on incentives either. Although there are other implications related to incentives and AI in general, but those are off topic.
ethbr1 1y ago
The part that seems to be missing these days, that was historically present in support orgs, is escalation. You’re always going to do the bulk of support through L1, and L1 support is going to be limited in terms of training and access. But! The intended flow is that L1 recognizes when an issue exceeds their ability and escalates it up to L2+. And that’s where your talented (and empowered!) support engineers work. That escalation just doesn’t seem to happen any more. My hypothesis is that it’s a consequence of L1 being outsourced, where now they’re heavily incentivized to avoid escalating and impacting their probably-contractual KPIs. Yet another cost for adding too many parties to something that could be better if it were simpler.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > Yet another cost for adding too many parties to something that could be better if it were simpler. But its not a cost from the perspective of the companies doj the outsourcing: the incentives are the way they are because the result is intended. Its not a cost of adding an extra party, it is part of the reason the party is added.