4 ms·

You are right. We are seeing a transition from the user as a customer to the user as a resource. It's almost like a cartel of shitty treatment. I don't work fo

by nicbou 10mo ago

You are right. We are seeing a transition from the user as a customer to the user as a resource. It's almost like a cartel of shitty treatment. I don't work for the public transit company; I introduce immigrants to Berlin's public transit. To answer to the broader question, good documentation is one of the many little things that affect how you feel about a company. The BVG clearly cares about that, because their marketing department is famously competent. Good documentation also means that fewer people will queue at their service centre and waste an employee's time. Documentation is the cheaper form of customer service. Besides, how people feels about the public transit company does matter, because their funding is partly a political question. No one will come to defend a much-hated, customer-hostile service.

apercu 10mo ago
“It's almost like a cartel of shitty treatment.” Thank you. I love it when someone poetically captures a feeling I’ve been having so succinctly.
- randmeerkat 10mo ago
  > Thank you. I love it when someone poetically captures a feeling I’ve been having so succinctly. It’s almost like they’re a professional writer…
  - apercu 10mo ago
    Just giving a human a compliment.
- bell-cot 10mo ago
  Enshittificartelization?
- alameenpd 10mo ago
  It’s almost like they are a professional writer
  - publicdebates 10mo ago
    Word for word, 53 minutes later? Why? I have exactly 1 guess but am waiting to say it.
    - fainpul 10mo ago
      His other comment in this thread is also a clone of someone else's comment.
      - bookofjoe 10mo ago
        His or its?
      - publicdebates 10mo ago
        And it happened after I wrote that comment. Which means I replied to a bot. I am officially retiring from social media.
        alameenpd 10mo ago
        I'm not a bot lmao. and dont retire cause of this . sorry for that but this was a genuine though and didnt mean to "copy" you or anyone . And im new to hackernews lol
  - apercu 10mo ago
    Thanks for reinforcing the point. Repetition is always the clearest form of insight.
    - apercu 10mo ago
      Sarcasm goes whooosh.
rkomorn 10mo ago
> We are seeing a transition from the user as a customer to the user as a resource. I'd argue that this started 30 years ago when automated phone trees started replacing the first line of workers and making users figure out how to navigate where they needed to in order to get the service they needed. I can't remember if chat bots or "knowledge bases" came first, but that was the next step in the "figure it out yourself" attitude corporations adopted (under the guise of empowering users to "self help"). Then we started letting corporations use the "we're just too big to actually have humans deal with things" excuse (eg online moderation, or paid services with basically no support). And all these companies look at each other to see who can lower the bar next and jump on the bandwagon. It's one of my "favorite" rants, I guess. The way I see this next era going is that it's basically going to become exclusively the users' responsibility to figure out how to talk to the bots to solve any issue they have.
tempodox 10mo ago
> Documentation is the cheaper form of customer service. Thank you so much for saying this. Trying to convince anyone of the importance of documentation feels like an uphill battle. Glad to see that I'm not completely crazy.
- anamax 10mo ago
  I had to talk to a human in PayPal's customer service because neither their documentation nor their chatbot says anything about how to "remember" a device, even though certain operations only work on remembered devices. They do document how to delete an unrecognized device.
theptip 10mo ago
Counterpoint - I think it’s going to become much easier for hobbyists and motivated small companies to make bigger projects. I expect to see more OSS, more competition, and eventually better quality-per-price (probably even better absolute quality at the “$0 / sell your data” tier). Sure, the megacorps may start rotting from the inside out, but we already see a retrenchment to smaller private communities, and if more of the benefits of the big platforms trickle down, why wouldn’t that continue? Nicbou, do you see AI as increasing your personal output? If it lets enthusiastic individuals get more leverage on good causes then I still have hope.
- samiv 10mo ago
  When it became cheaper to publish text did the quality go up? When it became cheaper to make games did the quality go up? When it became cheaper to mass produce X (sneakers, tshirts, anything really) did the quality go up? It's a world that is made of an abundance of trash. The volume of low quality production saturates the market and drowns out whatever high quality things still remain. In such a world you're just better of reallocating your resources from the production quality towards the the shouting match of marketing and try to win by finding ways to be more visible than the others. (SEO hacking etc shenanigans) When you drive down the cost of doing something to zero you you also effectively destroy the economy based around that thing. Like online print, basically nobody can make a living with focusing on publishing news or articles but alternative revenue streams (ads) are needed. Same for games too.
  - dpoloncsak 10mo ago
    >When it became cheaper to x did the quality go up? ...yes? It introduces a lower barrier to entry, so more low-quality things are also created, but it also increases the quality of the higher-tier as well. It's important to note that in FOSS, we (Or atleast...I) don't generally care who wrote the code, as long as it compiles and isn't malicious. This overlays with the original discussion...If I was paying you to read your posts, I expect them to be hand-written. If I'm paying for software, it better not be AI Slop. If you're offering me something for free, I'm not really in a position to complain about the quality. It's undeniable that, especially in software, cheaper costs and a lower barrier to get started will bring more great FOSS software. This is like one of the pillars of FOSS, right? That's how we got LetsEncrypt, OpenDNS, etc. It will also 100% bring more slop. Both can be true at the same time.

by nicbou 10mo ago

apercu 10mo ago

“It's almost like a cartel of shitty treatment.” Thank you. I love it when someone poetically captures a feeling I’ve been having so succinctly.

randmeerkat 10mo ago
> Thank you. I love it when someone poetically captures a feeling I’ve been having so succinctly. It’s almost like they’re a professional writer…
- apercu 10mo ago
  Just giving a human a compliment.
bell-cot 10mo ago
Enshittificartelization?
alameenpd 10mo ago
It’s almost like they are a professional writer
- publicdebates 10mo ago
  Word for word, 53 minutes later? Why? I have exactly 1 guess but am waiting to say it.
  - fainpul 10mo ago
    His other comment in this thread is also a clone of someone else's comment.
    - bookofjoe 10mo ago
      His or its?
    - publicdebates 10mo ago
      And it happened after I wrote that comment. Which means I replied to a bot. I am officially retiring from social media.
      - alameenpd 10mo ago
        I'm not a bot lmao. and dont retire cause of this . sorry for that but this was a genuine though and didnt mean to "copy" you or anyone . And im new to hackernews lol
- apercu 10mo ago
  Thanks for reinforcing the point. Repetition is always the clearest form of insight.
  - apercu 10mo ago
    Sarcasm goes whooosh.

rkomorn 10mo ago

> We are seeing a transition from the user as a customer to the user as a resource. I'd argue that this started 30 years ago when automated phone trees started replacing the first line of workers and making users figure out how to navigate where they needed to in order to get the service they needed. I can't remember if chat bots or "knowledge bases" came first, but that was the next step in the "figure it out yourself" attitude corporations adopted (under the guise of empowering users to "self help"). Then we started letting corporations use the "we're just too big to actually have humans deal with things" excuse (eg online moderation, or paid services with basically no support). And all these companies look at each other to see who can lower the bar next and jump on the bandwagon. It's one of my "favorite" rants, I guess. The way I see this next era going is that it's basically going to become exclusively the users' responsibility to figure out how to talk to the bots to solve any issue they have.

tempodox 10mo ago

> Documentation is the cheaper form of customer service. Thank you so much for saying this. Trying to convince anyone of the importance of documentation feels like an uphill battle. Glad to see that I'm not completely crazy.

anamax 10mo ago
I had to talk to a human in PayPal's customer service because neither their documentation nor their chatbot says anything about how to "remember" a device, even though certain operations only work on remembered devices. They do document how to delete an unrecognized device.

theptip 10mo ago

Counterpoint - I think it’s going to become much easier for hobbyists and motivated small companies to make bigger projects. I expect to see more OSS, more competition, and eventually better quality-per-price (probably even better absolute quality at the “$0 / sell your data” tier). Sure, the megacorps may start rotting from the inside out, but we already see a retrenchment to smaller private communities, and if more of the benefits of the big platforms trickle down, why wouldn’t that continue? Nicbou, do you see AI as increasing your personal output? If it lets enthusiastic individuals get more leverage on good causes then I still have hope.

samiv 10mo ago
When it became cheaper to publish text did the quality go up? When it became cheaper to make games did the quality go up? When it became cheaper to mass produce X (sneakers, tshirts, anything really) did the quality go up? It's a world that is made of an abundance of trash. The volume of low quality production saturates the market and drowns out whatever high quality things still remain. In such a world you're just better of reallocating your resources from the production quality towards the the shouting match of marketing and try to win by finding ways to be more visible than the others. (SEO hacking etc shenanigans) When you drive down the cost of doing something to zero you you also effectively destroy the economy based around that thing. Like online print, basically nobody can make a living with focusing on publishing news or articles but alternative revenue streams (ads) are needed. Same for games too.
- dpoloncsak 10mo ago
  >When it became cheaper to x did the quality go up? ...yes? It introduces a lower barrier to entry, so more low-quality things are also created, but it also increases the quality of the higher-tier as well. It's important to note that in FOSS, we (Or atleast...I) don't generally care who wrote the code, as long as it compiles and isn't malicious. This overlays with the original discussion...If I was paying you to read your posts, I expect them to be hand-written. If I'm paying for software, it better not be AI Slop. If you're offering me something for free, I'm not really in a position to complain about the quality. It's undeniable that, especially in software, cheaper costs and a lower barrier to get started will bring more great FOSS software. This is like one of the pillars of FOSS, right? That's how we got LetsEncrypt, OpenDNS, etc. It will also 100% bring more slop. Both can be true at the same time.