Comment by thesuitonym | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thesuitonym | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

A few years ago I bought a laundry washer and dryer set. They were nice, mid-range units and I was pretty happy with them. About a year after purchase, the plastic clips that held the handle on the dryer broke off. I called the phone number on my warranty papers and spoke to a human being in Tennessee. I told her what happened, and she asked me for the model number and my address. They shipped a replacement that arrived at my house two days later.

A mistake happened, the plastic was too weak (Or maybe I pulled too hard, I don't know!) but I was able to contact the company and get it fixed.

It doesn't matter what mistakes are made if there is a way to fix it. If these systems are automated, fine. But if a mistake is made, why isn't there a way to get it fixed? That's where humans come in.

btw, Alphabet's income is about 42 times that of the company that made my washer/dryer. How is it that they can afford phone reps when Alphabet can't?

How many of those washer/dryer units do you think they sold? Hundreds of thousands? If it's a super common model, maybe millions?

Google and Facebook each have 3-4 orders of magnitude more customers. I'm not sure manning phones is realistic.

Every problem looks daunting until you have the right incentives to solve it.

If the problem is too big for Google and Facebook to handle, maybe Google and Facebook shouldn't exist

There are good benefits of having centralised services though. I don’t like this either, but I don’t think the solution is as simple as “they shouldn’t exist”.

I think the issues come down to incorrect or misaligned incentives.

You have the choice to not use Google or Facebook. What I hear you saying is that you don't like the fact that I'm using Google and Facebook.

I think you're losing sight of the argument. People know Facebook and Google don't take customer service seriously, but then seem amazed when they have a problem and Google and Facebook won't solve it. Meanwhile, one side says that these problems could be fixed if big companies wanted to spend some money on it, and others who say it's not a problem because it hasn't inconvenienced them yet.

I can fully respect a smug "told ya so" attitude. But this "maybe xyz shouldn't exist" attitude irritates me. I accept there's a risk to using these low-touch services... and that's my decision, no?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com