Not related to the topic at hand, but I wish this site had an About page. I read this whole article and felt the author was very passionate about the online community he hosts, so I thought maybe I could hang around there a bit, but couldn't find out what Fark is about. I don't mean to be negative by the way, in fact I liked the way the author is passionate about the site.
Fark NotNewsletter: Google farked us over
41–50 of 58 posts
Re: Fark NotNewsletter: Google farked us over
#42It's disturbing that many companies don't have humans to respond soon enough or don't have humans to reach out to at all. Machines can learn and get better at analyzing and classifying information, but it'll be a long time before a machine can pick up the phone to answer a customer's call with a proper conversation (with understanding and decisions based on arguments) or truly read and understand an email conversation back and forth and understand the entire context and allow for exceptions and more "appropriate" decisions like humans could (depending on the situation and the background).
Re: Fark NotNewsletter: Google farked us over
#43Not related to the topic at hand, but I wish this site had an About page. I read this whole article and felt the author was very passionate about the online community he hosts, so I thought maybe I could hang around there a bit, but couldn't find out what Fark is about. I don't mean to be negative by the way, in fact I liked the way the author is passionate about the site.
It does:
http://www.fark.com/farq/
Re: Fark NotNewsletter: Google farked us over
#44It's disturbing that many companies don't have humans to respond soon enough or don't have humans to reach out to at all. Machines can learn and get better at analyzing and classifying information, but it'll be a long time before a machine can pick up the phone to answer a customer's call with a proper conversation (with understanding and decisions based on arguments) or truly read and understand an email conversatio…
Why is it disturbing? Many products bring in very little revenue per user. It's unfair to require a support system when the expense can easily far outweigh the revenue, especially when answers are often easy to find online.
Re: Fark NotNewsletter: Google farked us over
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the theoretical "free market" is nothing like what actually happens in practice. The Economist had a great writeup on this a few days ago [1], but the short of it is that Google is the definitive market leader, with almost no one in second place. Moving to a different network is simply accepting that your ads will perform worse. Additionally, responding to outright fraud by Google with the statement "move els…
>They can abuse their near-monopoly of the market with almost no fear of reprisal. What checkbox isn't Google checking to be hit by anti-trust action for its ad networks?
The government doesn't seem to prosecute those cases anymore. Internet ISP's with their geographically bound actual physical monopolies would be an even stronger case but you don't hear anything from the feds about prosecuting those companies either
Re: Fark NotNewsletter: Google farked us over
#46I have complex feelings about this. As a libertarian type I say one forces you to use Google (yes, I know they're by far the most effective ad network). I don't feel like their natural monopoly in search has hurt me much. Normally I would not see any reason for the US to get involved in GOOG's business. On the other hand, I have seen Google do its very best to pervert the free market. Their name appears well over 300…
> Filipinos, Samoans, Latinos, African Americans, and other persons of color?
Plenty of non-white people working at Google. What does this ethnic diversity have to do with your little free market rant?
Re: Fark NotNewsletter: Google farked us over
#47Re: Fark NotNewsletter: Google farked us over
#48I have complex feelings about this. As a libertarian type I say one forces you to use Google (yes, I know they're by far the most effective ad network). I don't feel like their natural monopoly in search has hurt me much. Normally I would not see any reason for the US to get involved in GOOG's business. On the other hand, I have seen Google do its very best to pervert the free market. Their name appears well over 300…
> Filipinos, Samoans, Latinos, African Americans, and other persons of color? Plenty of non-white people working at Google. What does this ethnic diversity have to do with your little free market rant?
> your little free market rant
Great way to contribute to the conversation!
Re: Fark NotNewsletter: Google farked us over
#49Google lost a lawsuit in Germany a few years ago. Evidently German law says that if a customer reaches out to a corporation, that corporation must have a human respond. It's not good enough (as google argued) to use an email auto-responder. Not the best summaries but here is more information: http://www.vzbv.de/sites/default/files/downloads/google-vzbv... http://www.computerworld.com/article/2497169/search/consumer..…
>This doesn't mean that every incoming email should now be checked and processed individually by a Google employee, the court said. But the company has to provide the possibility for users to contact it via email, it said. It was left up to Google how to deal with future incoming email.
In other words, they must not send an auto-reply to users saying the email is not monitored, but it is basically okay that they don't monitor it.
[1] http://www.itworld.com/article/2694219/it-management/german-... [2] http://www.cgerli.org/fileadmin/user_upload/interne_Dokument...
Re: Fark NotNewsletter: Google farked us over
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never really understand why comments like this get downvoted. There seems to be love for the free market. That is until the free market goes against what I want. Then the free market sucks! What if FARK was another type of business. Say it is the corner 7-11[1]. They have been there for 18 years, and their major source of customers was the big factory next door. Factory decides to either move / redesign / whatever,…
>That is until the free market goes against what I want. Then the free market sucks! I'm not sure anyone is saying that the free market sucks. People are saying that there is no free market in some sectors and that, in the absence of a reasonably efficient free market, the least worst alternative is regulation.
I think it sucks, but that's because I'm a Communist.