141–150 of 484 posts
Which email service should one recommend in these cases? ProtonMail?
To the target audience of the library? Outlook.com as it's the simplest to use. Their immediate concern is their livelihood so they need a free email account and not have to think about anything else including its lifetime. To a techie audience? ProtonMail, FastMail, Tutanota, GMail, Postfix...
"Many government welfare forms, housing applications, and jobs applications these days require the use of the internet exclusively with no option to fill things out in person."
Why is this? Really, this does not seem like a problem Google caused, but rather a problem caused by the government when they made it mandatory to have internet access to get the benefits they should get. Would they have made it mandatory to call them on the phone, back when phone access was not yet universal? If they had, would AT&T have been at fault?
The government caused this problem.
I'm all in favor of finding a non-government solution (charity sponsored by HN people to get people Yubikey or equivalent, maybe). But this is not really a problem caused by Google, and if these people were having their benefits scammed away from them because their email accounts were hacked, people would be excoriating them for not instituting 2FA.
I wish that Shelley had co-written this letter with either a tech employee or a more tech-focused librarian. The problem that she mentions is real: I've worked in her position and can confirm. But the way the letter is written makes it clear that she's not very familiar with the tech industry or how things are developed. If I were a Google engineer, this would read like one of dozens of pleas we get constantly to cha…
My goodness, I think you just might be lacking in empathy. I honestly recommend that you take a step back and reread what you have written here. > But the way the letter is written makes it clear that she's not very familiar with the tech industry or how things are developed And she should not have to be familiar with the tech industry. The tech industry's job is to figure out what the users want, by understanding wh…
I don't think it's 'lacking empathy' to focus on whether or not the tactics or strategies my allies are using are likely to, you know, work. I would consider it more important that the letter be taken seriously and lead to actual change than people pat themselves on the back for their empathy in agreeing. It's because I have empathy for the people affected by this issue that I care more about effectiveness than the feelings of the people reading/writing the letter.
> And she should not have to be familiar with the tech industry. The tech industry's job is to figure out what the users want, by understanding what they do.
I mean, she's a librarian. I do expect people in our profession to be able to look at an issue, understand where our experience is lacking, and seek to either remedy it or find someone with complementary skills. For a librarian to run into a problem and not act to acquire relevant information is something I (as another librarian) am pretty comfortable judging as 'unwise'.
> The tech industry's job is to figure out what the users want, by understanding what they do.
The tech industry's job is to make money.
> No no I hope not! I hope that engineers who possess some empathy will see a letter like this and feel their pain and feel compelled to do something for them. If someone feels nothing after reading this letter, they are lacking in empathy.
I would like the world to be that way. It would be great. I would feel much more optimistic!
More than all the antitrust regulations being thrown at Google, I'd like to see regulators force Google to provide users customer support.
I fully sympathize with the librarian's concerns, but there's this: "Many government welfare forms, housing applications, and jobs applications these days require the use of the internet exclusively with no option to fill things out in person." Why is this? Really, this does not seem like a problem Google caused, but rather a problem caused by the government when they made it mandatory to have internet access to get…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
yikes. old poor people are having their lives upended because technology has infiltrated the processes by which basic business is conducted and the designers of said technology had not bothered to consider them as a real use case, and your response is "she's not asking nicely enough." yikes*10000. cringe^inf.
Maybe I should have mentioned I'm a programmer and a librarian, and my suggestion is one of tactics/strategy. I care more about getting the problem fixed than the writer's feelings not being hurt, and I think that things would be more likely to change if she'd written it differently.
> I care more about getting the problem fixed than the writer's feelings not being hurt
i don't really follow how the writer's feelings could be hurt in any case. you seem to have an odd perspective on all of this.
I fully sympathize with the librarian's concerns, but there's this: "Many government welfare forms, housing applications, and jobs applications these days require the use of the internet exclusively with no option to fill things out in person." Why is this? Really, this does not seem like a problem Google caused, but rather a problem caused by the government when they made it mandatory to have internet access to get…
> Even when we clicked “I don’t have my phone” it asked her to open the Google app from the phone that she does not have.
That's a google problem.
Google fixing their problem would lessen the impact of the government problem. (And, more generally, make gmail a better service for lots of people.)
This is one of those situations that make it incredibly clear that even Google, with all its resources, never considers the use case or life experience of anyone besides a wealthy Bay Area tech worker when designing their products. I can't help but wonder how this blind spot got so big - and why they still don't address things like this even with all the user testing & A/B trials they do for ruthless optimization. Is…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds like a good idea! Perhaps expand what notaries do?
It sounds nice. if everyone plays nice. Slip some underpaid gov worker a 50 and suddenly you are someone else. There would need to be abuse provisions put in place. Then a whole org around that too. Not saying it can not be done, but it looks like to me is Google has a poor customer service issue, even if not true. Roping our govs into doing googles customer service seems odd.
by that logic, slip some policeman a $50 and they might plant drugs on your enemy or shoot him because he had a wallet that looked like a gun.
Have employees of private conoaniea never been involved in fraud?