It's really another symptom of the digital asymmetry.<p>It's the same as sign-up being one-click CC details input, but cancelling the account/subscriptions requires you to send a paper mail to America, with parcel tracking, and then The Company has 90 (business) days to "review your case", and they may as well decline it, to which your recourse is... take them to court? In California?<p>Compare that to the medieval market/bazaar: the seller shows you the goods, you show them the geld; you inspect the item(s), they inspect the payment(s). You either both agree to the exchange, or not. Symmetry.<p>And no, I'm not advocating traveling back in time. I'm advocating for more symmetry between the selling and the buying sides.
Comcast/Xfinity changed their system last year so that if you try to call and talk with voice to a support human you're sent into a loop that eventually hangs up on you. The only way to talk to a human now is to say you want to cancel your account.
It's not clear from the article. Are they reducing the staff count so that it naturally averages at at least 15 minutes to get to an agent or are they literally adding a loop in to make people wait even if an agent is available? While longer waits are not great, I guess I could excuse the first way. If they are just sticking people on hold to make they hang up even when the wait time would have been shorter without an artificial hold, that is just bad.
Is anyone really surprised?<p>Now, you'll probably wait that extra 15 mins just to "talk" to a bot 8-(<p>All we can do is continue to curse Carly Fiarina (and her pose)...
This is really no different from health insrance companies just automatically denying first attempts at prior authorization: because it increases profits. Increasing waiting times means a certain percentage of peopel will give up or get disconnected and not bother re-trying. That's fewer calls your representatives will have to take so you need fewer of tehm, saving money.<p>Everywhere you look, from egg prices to electricity prices to broadband prices to medicare care costs, you see price gouging. Some event might be used to justify those prices increases. Profits always need to increase.<p>Some people will look at all this and say it's fine. These people are modern serfs who think their billionaire lord and masters deserve to be their lord and masters.<p>Some will see this as a few bad apples and it's a lack of government regulation or a lack of competition, which is the same thing because companies will seek to increase profits by decreasing competition by buying up or merging with competitors.<p>Eventually you realize all of this is by design. It's a fundamental and systemic problem. It's the internal contridctions in capitalism.