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Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

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Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#81

Post by mannykannot »

kube-system wrote: post #64
mannykannot wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it does not exist, I said it does not work as a justification for actions that infringe on rights.

Sure, especially when we’re talking about rights that are almost universally agreed upon. But it could be a good justification for something like “the right to talk to customer support for Candy Crush”. The OP didn’t specify which companies he was trying to contact.

It was the originator of this thread (endsleigh) who framed the issue in terms of rights and their value. I am pointing out that this is not a useful way to look at it.

Here, you are asking, in effect, whether a Candy Crush player has any such right in the first place, and I think it is completely reasonable to say they do not in such trivial matters. As I mentioned in my original post, I am mainly concerned with third parties, several of whom have shown up in the broader discussion, but customers and ex-customers could have reasonable issues with retroactive policy changes to issues such as privacy.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#83

Post by _3u10 »

ironmagma wrote: post #27
PaulKeeble wrote: post #16

I think its important to recognise that quite a lot of modern web based companies are running their business on the 0 cents model. That is they take the marginal cost of a customer and push it down to zero and rely on scale to make a profit from it. They can't add anything to their business that would scale with the number of their customers that has any real cost, computing resources even are heavily optimised for l…

I think the point here is that it’s a bad business model. I don’t mean “bad as in won’t make you money or keep the business running,” I mean “bad for society.” Hence the desire to regulate.

Regulation doesn’t make unprofitable businesses exist. If the business model is unviable with support those businesses will simply not exist or cost an amount of money that is unappealing.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#86

Post by EvanAnderson »

10x-dev wrote: post #48

I bought a sump pump, and called their number to ask some question. 30 seconds and one menu option later I was speaking with someone who clearly had a lot of technical knowledge of the sump pump. I was very pleasantly surprised since I am used to expect no human interaction and if I get a human on the call, it would be someone who can only provide "common sense" level of support. I wish this were the case for more co…

I have no need for a sump pump but I kinda want to give money to this company. If you wouldn't mind sharing the company name I'd love to have it. They may well make something else I do need and I'd love to reward a company who is such a good job.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#87

Post by webstrand »

criddell wrote: post #25
dforrestwilson wrote: post #18

This week we had a disgruntled employee leave a 1-star Google review of our shop. They have never been a customer... I reported it as a Conflict of Interest PER GOOGLE'S OWN STATED POLICY and it was rejected almost immediately. Google could find nothing wrong with the review. We have no recourse to escalate. No way to even interact with a human about it. It's absolutely ridiculous. I have plenty of documentation and…

Maybe try suing them in small claims court. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_1...

Google appealed and won, apparently. Frustratingly there appears to be no rationale for the reversal.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_2...

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#88

Post by lotsofpulp »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #80
ironmagma wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point here is that it’s a bad business model. I don’t mean “bad as in won’t make you money or keep the business running,” I mean “bad for society.” Hence the desire to regulate.

While true, this is how the system is set up for at the moment, because if one company doesn't cut costs, someone else (with a lot of investor money) will come in and undercut the market. Because when it comes down to it, people don't care about speaking to a human when they can get a product or service for less than the competition. Both corporations and consumers min/max their expenses, at the cost of service or hu…

> It's one reason why I'm in favor of nationalizing things or keeping things nationalized

I have a business in NJ where the state unemployment department has made an error. After hundreds of phone calls and multiple physical letters, we have received no response in over 16 months. The issue is still outstanding. Governments are no better than businesses in this matter.

You can call them the minute the offices open for a month straight, and get the same “high call volume, call back next business day” message.

The solution is to get a state politician’s ear who back channels their way into getting a government employee to take up the problem. But that is the same as getting a post to top of twitter/Reddit/hacker news and hoping a google employee decides to act.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#89

Post by jdavis703 »

In the US you have this right. It’s called small claims court. You need to write the corporation a demand letter. If they don’t respond to your demands within the deadline you can begin legal proceedings. You don’t even need a lawyer. You just need to research the relevant laws in your jurisdiction and the procedures of your local small claims court.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#90

Post by GistNoesis »

What about butler/concierge services that you pay to act as an intermediary to handle the small problems ? Or maybe even some personal assistant if you have more money (or Siri if you are poor).

Companies often have solutions in search for problems, wouldn't it be a great way for them to get high-quality input to provide new services while filtering the miscommunications.

Adding this intermediary could help reduce the friction to switch from an actor that refuses to do customer support or refuse to play the game, and would help shift the balance of power back to the consumer.

Otherwise there is also the open-source/diy solution and reducing your dependencies on other, but until they have enough funding to be able to provide any services, there will always be some missing services.

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