Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of the demos of booking travel using AI are hilarious to me. This used to be a job a travel agent did, and planning a trip was either a fun conversation or you could be like "send me somewhere warm" and let them do it. Is it cheaper now that you can swear at flight booking software yourself, and scream at the hotel when they cancel your rooms that you got from a third party site that went through some other inter…
> Oh sure, all the web searches and ads are targeted in a way that you're going to end up at the same place a travel agent would have put you, but you can perceive the freedom of choice along the way! And you can enjoy all the risk and liability for mistakes made along the way, too, which is where the actual optimization happened in the economy.
Have a fucking website
351–360 of 559 posts
Re: Have a fucking website
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah, they're right. In fact, "self-service" is one of the biggest value transfers from people to capital owners, a society-wide "fast one" the computing industry pulled over everyone. It's cool that you can do something yourself with a computer, whether it's ordering food or picking clothes or booking a trip. But, market doing market things, that can quickly became a have to , which is much less cool. It's a problem…
Correct. The smartest people in academia get promoted to positions that used to come with administrative staff. Now they’re expected to do all of that with a computer , which is easy right? So now they spend 30% or more of their time administrationating their position, rather than delegating those duties to their admin staff. That’s less time teaching and innovating. Meanwhile, the increase in administration costs of…
Re: Have a fucking website
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can put your menu on Google maps, we did it for our restaurant. https://maps.app.goo.gl/YdbSHd7hewkXQeMz8 see "menu" tab To be fair the Google maps restaurant side of the operation is quite possibly the largest ratio I've ever seen between "amount of capital and engineering skill available" and "quality (lack thereof) of UX." You have to access your restaurant profile through the Google search portal. It's a nigh…
That's one way to do it. The links are broken though.
Re: Have a fucking website
#354Maybe we're not going to the same places but "just having a website for rates and hours" is a SAT problem for salons/tattoo parlors. They need to know what you want and also show flattering photos of what they can do (and also comply with the growing mountain of privacy regulations), determine if you have any staff preferences and when staff is available for whatever you're requesting, and compute the available times…
The preferred methods today seems to be Facebook for your average builder, Instagram if they feel like they do more upscale work. I'm on neither platform, so I have to resort to taking pictures of vans when I'm out and about.
I think the problem is that having a website is a bit complicated for a carpenter, but not enough business for a webdesign company to deal with.
Re: Have a fucking website
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do you have any justification in mind for the “free service” being funded by tax payers? Why should it be free for the people who need it, and why should tax payers fund it? Because the government should provide useful services. It should be funded by tax dollars because I'm tried of libertarians, and it's well-demonstrated that the free market has consumer hostile incentives that I'm sick of.
Alright cool. Your assuming the local government employed webmaster won't favor his friends restaurants. Craigslist basically is this, and it's more or less free.
Oh my! Mic drop! You got me! Corporate owned sites would have to be unbiased, right? It's not like a business would ever do something as disreputable favoring a restaurant that paid for the favored treatment, or try to steer you to affiliated businesses. Inconceivable!
But seriously now: a government-run site would be way better and have less biases. In the US, there's a good chance it'd be run by civically-minded people, and there's about zero chance that conflict of interest would be baked into its "business" model.
Re: Have a fucking website
#356Millennials delenda est. Or maybe Gen X. But definitely millennials. I am stockpiling champagne for when performative profanity goes to the grave with the silent generation against which it is still rebelling 70 years later. I do not want to order the sloppy toppy burger at BURGERSLUT. Just give me a cheeseburger. But yes, you should build a website.
Re: Have a fucking website
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
I often turn to the saying "Rich people don't talk to robots". Time poor people want things done for them not by them. The agency of action needs to be delegated. Just because Flight Centre can automatically line up your flights for you, doesn't mean they want to. Time poor people still don't have time to go through that nor do they want to. They ask their assistant to do it, their assistant knows them well and fills…
"Time-poor" rather than "time poor" would make this a lot more readable. I struggled a bit on the first go of reading. Otherwise, totally agree.
Re: Have a fucking website
#358Millennials delenda est. Or maybe Gen X. But definitely millennials. I am stockpiling champagne for when performative profanity goes to the grave with the silent generation against which it is still rebelling 70 years later. I do not want to order the sloppy toppy burger at BURGERSLUT. Just give me a cheeseburger. But yes, you should build a website.
You will be forced to watch Firefly for eternity. Millenials will rule the internet for a 1000 years (a millenia).
Re: Have a fucking website
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except Squarespace does not just sell hosting. Their main business is selling a CMS and website builder that is supposed to be easy enough for complete noobs to use. You and I know how to build and host websites, ok, but it had likely taken us dozens if not hundreds of hours of learning everything between TCP/IP to ARIA attributes to get here. The average small business owner does not have this knowledge or the time…
> Their main business is selling a CMS and website builder that is supposed to be easy enough for complete noobs to use. Yeah, like I said, it costs close to $0. > The average small business owner does not have this knowledge or the time to learn it. They keep Squarespace in business. My point is, SquareSpace could charge a fraction of what they do and still be rolling in cash. Instead they charge ridiculous fees tha…
> My point is, SquareSpace could charge a fraction of what they do and still be rolling in cash. Instead they charge ridiculous fees that simply go to pay for more ads.
This is the classic sentiment by which one can tell that the person has no idea how businesses/markets work.[1]
The only relationship between the cost and the price is that the former is a floor for the latter. The price is determined by the value it brings to the one paying for it. If it is less than the cost to build, you don't have a business. If it's 1000x the cost to build, then you charge 1000x. Why would you charge less?
If the cost was so close to $0, and they charge $20/month, all that means is that there's an opening for you to set up the same business and charge, say, $15/mo.
I thought SS charged a lot more. Frankly, $20/mo is a steal. If a restaurant can't afford to pay $20/mo to acquire customers, they're not in good shape at all.
[1] I used to be that guy.
Re: Have a fucking website
#360There is no revolution to be had, the people have made (and are continuing to make) their choice.
This is technology at scale, for better or worse.