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I think the problem here is that these systems are frequently set up to look authoritative. "Hurry up! Only 1 left!" is a common sight on Amazon. The user doe

by mason55 11y ago

I think the problem here is that these systems are frequently set up to look authoritative. "Hurry up! Only 1 left!" is a common sight on Amazon. The user doesn't care about the challenges of a globally consistent distributed database, all they know is you said there was one left so they bought from you and now you're telling them you were wrong. You set expectations and then failed to meet them and that upsets people If your system is not quite perfect, especially around something that can drive a purchasing decision, then make it clear to the user. "Hey, we're low on stock, we think we have 1 left but we might be out". Maybe you can even give a confidence interval, like "This item sells very quickly so we're probably out by now and don't realize it" vs. "we sell two of these a year and know that as of 5 minutes ago there was one left so we probably still have it". Now the user can make an informed decision.

nostrademons 11y ago
That's where the "compensation" part of the original article comes in. If a company's doing this strategy right, they make it up to the customer in some generous way - "We'll give you a full refund and your next purchase is free" if the shopping cart says something is in stock and it isn't, "We'll pay for your remodel" if someone trashes your AirBnB, "We'll give you a free ticket" if you get bumped from a flight. What some of the smarter big companies have realized is that emotions are fungible, and they work on a "last writer wins" basis. If you do something really nice for the customer after inconveniencing them (and it has to be more "nice" than the initial problem was "nasty"), they remember you making it up to them, not the initial problem. That shifts the cost of compensation back onto the company, which gives them an incentive to improve their systems, but also lets them trade-off occasional hefty compensation charges against getting 100% consistency & availability, which is impossible.

by mason55 11y ago

nostrademons 11y ago

That's where the "compensation" part of the original article comes in. If a company's doing this strategy right, they make it up to the customer in some generous way - "We'll give you a full refund and your next purchase is free" if the shopping cart says something is in stock and it isn't, "We'll pay for your remodel" if someone trashes your AirBnB, "We'll give you a free ticket" if you get bumped from a flight. What some of the smarter big companies have realized is that emotions are fungible, and they work on a "last writer wins" basis. If you do something really nice for the customer after inconveniencing them (and it has to be more "nice" than the initial problem was "nasty"), they remember you making it up to them, not the initial problem. That shifts the cost of compensation back onto the company, which gives them an incentive to improve their systems, but also lets them trade-off occasional hefty compensation charges against getting 100% consistency & availability, which is impossible.