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Apologies, but I'm shocked by the self-centered, entitled crap I see here; most if not all of those annecdotes speak to the self-important, self-absorbed nature

Apologies, but I'm shocked by the self-centered, entitled crap I see here; most if not all of those annecdotes speak to the self-important, self-absorbed nature of modern society. (Side note: this isn't just my opinion - there's a decent amount of research on the growth of narcissism in modern scotiety. Look at the work of Dr. Jean Twenge, for example) A small example: >My father learned this lesson last year after leaving me a dozen voice mail messages, none of which I listened to. If you enable voicemail and allow people to leave you messages, it's on you to listen to them. Social interactions are no different than product or software design - don't include an affordance for a feature that you don't want the user to use or, worse, will result in guaranteed failure to accomplish the desired task. The fault isn't the caller's.

greenyoda 14y ago
Another indication of Mr. Bilton's self-centeredness and entitlement is that he posts tons of articles from his own NY Times blog (and nothing else) to HN, assuming that we all want to read it: http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=nickbilton http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=nickbilton Other than those posts, his total contribution to HN was one comment made over a year ago. It's a bit ironic that someone who can't even be bothered to listen to his father's voicemails would assume that a community that he apparently doesn't consider himself a part of will want to read everything he has to say.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- DanBC 14y ago
  Not as bad as some people, but still: (http://imgur.com/OxrsFTP http://imgur.com/OxrsFTP)
saurik 14y ago
Yeah... I am someone who agrees with most of the statements made by the author (and if you don't, try spending ten hours in one day trying to catch up on five days of email and failing: the emotional response you have to "thanks!" changes pretty quickly; even still, though, I usually can't really fault the sender), but that voicemail example was just inane: if he doesn't want voicemail, he should turn it off... he can even leave the message, but turn off the recording and storage. If he can't for some reason, he should just have the message tell people he can't check messages, and that they should text him (or whatever he had wanted). Frankly, though, if he doesn't want to listen to voicemail, he should sign up for PhoneTag or YouMail or some other "uses humans to transcribe voicemail" services and then stop whining about it, as the user then gets to leave the voicemail they expected and that he even invited, and he gets the text message he wanted. Technology solved this problem a long time ago, and if he doesn't want to use it, that's really his own fault.
- greenyoda 14y ago
  "try spending ten hours in one day trying to catch up on five days of email and failing: the emotional response you have to 'thanks!' changes pretty quickly" I actually have the opposite reaction: when I'm trying to catch up on e-mail, any message that I can read and delete in a couple of seconds gives me a sense of relief. And the fact that it's a personal thank-you rather than some outdated notification from a build server makes it even nicer.
  - saurik 14y ago
    I feel like if I had a more finite amount of email I would feel that way. I know I used to. I actually get tons of "blank emails" from users leaving my app open in their pocket and sending an email (something difficult to control due to Apple's remote view setup, and a restriction that Cydia can't come with Substrate). I used to feel those totally no-action-item-at-all emails were great, but then I ended up having hundreds of them, now thounsands. The result is that I finally just feel anger and try to pre-filter them (which isn't 100% effective as users have custom signatures that are long or complex sometimes). I think I felt the same way with thank yous, but now they seem like a penalty, a cost I incur if I respond to a user and solve their problem. I think of it more like my job is to help as many people as possible in the time I have, and every X thank yous is one less legitimate question or bug report I'm able to find. My response has been to do everything I can to rely on "indirect solutions". Like, if I can cause a user to get a refund email from PayPal, I know they don't need me to also tell them (in fact, by this same moral, we might even call the duplicate rude at this point ;P). That massively cut down my "thanks!" responses. (Yes, I realize with even more email technology I might be able to better cheaply outsource the filtering. I am working on that. At some point, though, you wonder why you can't just solve the problem at the source ;P.)
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - incongruity 14y ago
      Forgive me, but the problem isn't the source. I don't want to live in a world where people are shunned for expressing their gratitude. The problem here sounds like you're ill-equipped for the demands placed on you. (And, possibly, that anyone in your position would be, so I'm not trying to be snarky here). If I were your manager (not that you have one, but hypothetically) – I would surmise that the issue is that your position is under-staffed or that you have too much on your plate as an individual worker. Sure, technology might offer some solutions, but if it's to the point that you resent expressions of gratitude from your users, you're losing the ability to empathize with them and that begins to be dangerous from many perspectives. Further, honestly, you lose something more when you avoid and/or lose that customer contact and that perception of responsiveness from a real person – people like immediate, self-service options, but they also value knowing there's a responsive human out there, ready to fix whatever imaginable problem they may face. That sort of thing wins and retains customers, users, etc. -- "I think I felt the same way with thank yous, but now they seem like a penalty, a cost I incur if I respond to a user and solve their problem. I think of it more like my job is to help as many people as possible in the time I have, and every X thank yous is one less legitimate question or bug report I'm able to find." As a final point, I just reject the idea that the time and cognitive load from one (or even a dozen) thank-you emails is equal to the time required for a question or bug report, so I doubt the gravity of the problem to begin with and maintain that there's more afoot here than simply over-demand for constrained resources.

greenyoda 14y ago

Another indication of Mr. Bilton's self-centeredness and entitlement is that he posts tons of articles from his own NY Times blog (and nothing else) to HN, assuming that we all want to read it: http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=nickbilton http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=nickbilton Other than those posts, his total contribution to HN was one comment made over a year ago. It's a bit ironic that someone who can't even be bothered to listen to his father's voicemails would assume that a community that he apparently doesn't consider himself a part of will want to read everything he has to say.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
DanBC 14y ago
Not as bad as some people, but still: (http://imgur.com/OxrsFTP http://imgur.com/OxrsFTP)

saurik 14y ago

Yeah... I am someone who agrees with most of the statements made by the author (and if you don't, try spending ten hours in one day trying to catch up on five days of email and failing: the emotional response you have to "thanks!" changes pretty quickly; even still, though, I usually can't really fault the sender), but that voicemail example was just inane: if he doesn't want voicemail, he should turn it off... he can even leave the message, but turn off the recording and storage. If he can't for some reason, he should just have the message tell people he can't check messages, and that they should text him (or whatever he had wanted). Frankly, though, if he doesn't want to listen to voicemail, he should sign up for PhoneTag or YouMail or some other "uses humans to transcribe voicemail" services and then stop whining about it, as the user then gets to leave the voicemail they expected and that he even invited, and he gets the text message he wanted. Technology solved this problem a long time ago, and if he doesn't want to use it, that's really his own fault.

greenyoda 14y ago
"try spending ten hours in one day trying to catch up on five days of email and failing: the emotional response you have to 'thanks!' changes pretty quickly" I actually have the opposite reaction: when I'm trying to catch up on e-mail, any message that I can read and delete in a couple of seconds gives me a sense of relief. And the fact that it's a personal thank-you rather than some outdated notification from a build server makes it even nicer.
- saurik 14y ago
  I feel like if I had a more finite amount of email I would feel that way. I know I used to. I actually get tons of "blank emails" from users leaving my app open in their pocket and sending an email (something difficult to control due to Apple's remote view setup, and a restriction that Cydia can't come with Substrate). I used to feel those totally no-action-item-at-all emails were great, but then I ended up having hundreds of them, now thounsands. The result is that I finally just feel anger and try to pre-filter them (which isn't 100% effective as users have custom signatures that are long or complex sometimes). I think I felt the same way with thank yous, but now they seem like a penalty, a cost I incur if I respond to a user and solve their problem. I think of it more like my job is to help as many people as possible in the time I have, and every X thank yous is one less legitimate question or bug report I'm able to find. My response has been to do everything I can to rely on "indirect solutions". Like, if I can cause a user to get a refund email from PayPal, I know they don't need me to also tell them (in fact, by this same moral, we might even call the duplicate rude at this point ;P). That massively cut down my "thanks!" responses. (Yes, I realize with even more email technology I might be able to better cheaply outsource the filtering. I am working on that. At some point, though, you wonder why you can't just solve the problem at the source ;P.)
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - incongruity 14y ago
    Forgive me, but the problem isn't the source. I don't want to live in a world where people are shunned for expressing their gratitude. The problem here sounds like you're ill-equipped for the demands placed on you. (And, possibly, that anyone in your position would be, so I'm not trying to be snarky here). If I were your manager (not that you have one, but hypothetically) – I would surmise that the issue is that your position is under-staffed or that you have too much on your plate as an individual worker. Sure, technology might offer some solutions, but if it's to the point that you resent expressions of gratitude from your users, you're losing the ability to empathize with them and that begins to be dangerous from many perspectives. Further, honestly, you lose something more when you avoid and/or lose that customer contact and that perception of responsiveness from a real person – people like immediate, self-service options, but they also value knowing there's a responsive human out there, ready to fix whatever imaginable problem they may face. That sort of thing wins and retains customers, users, etc. -- "I think I felt the same way with thank yous, but now they seem like a penalty, a cost I incur if I respond to a user and solve their problem. I think of it more like my job is to help as many people as possible in the time I have, and every X thank yous is one less legitimate question or bug report I'm able to find." As a final point, I just reject the idea that the time and cognitive load from one (or even a dozen) thank-you emails is equal to the time required for a question or bug report, so I doubt the gravity of the problem to begin with and maintain that there's more afoot here than simply over-demand for constrained resources.