The Tech Dystopia Thread

[Josephus]

I'm becoming more and more luddite each passing day.

Natural result of getting old while new tech is developing

Yup. 

If it makes you feel any better my older son just mentioned to me that he feels like he starting to get out of touch with technology. Actually that might not make you feel any better.

LOL....No.

[viper37]

That's remarkable.

I can understand using an AI to develop subjects.  I can even see how that'd be useful.  But surely you then need to actually uncover evidence of fraud itself?

If it's like Canada, they don't really bother themselves with evidence and stuff like that.  They send you a bil, you pay them or you pay your lawyer.

[DGuller]

Speaking of dystopia, I guess I'm the victim of one as well, thankfully far more minor than the one in the first post.  Two days ago I was clearing my e-mails, saw some really, really old e-mail from eBay, so I decided to log in just to see that I still could.  That was probably the first thing I've done on that account in literally 10 years.

Today I get an e-mail that I'm permanently suspended, "because of activity that we believe was putting the eBay community at risk".  "We understand that this must be frustrating, but this decision was not made lightly and it's important that we keep our marketplace safe for everyone."

I beg to differ about the last part.  It sure sounds like the decision has been made because of some flag automatically acted on.  I got on the support chat, and apparently my account has been permanently suspended because eBay believed it was putting the eBay community at risk.  Shockingly, I actually got some additional detail out of them eventually, and it turns out that I had no address or phone number on file. 

Can I give it to them now?  Nope.  Can they unban me?  No.  So what the fuck do I do?  One agent suggested starting a new account.  I'm kind of skeptical that starting another account after being permanently suspended is a wise choice, and I don't have another e-mail anyway.

I Googled around, and it turns out that being permanently suspended is done only for very serious violations, and there is no way to get it reversed.    Obviously I don't need this account badly if I haven't used it for 10 years, but at this point I'm just pursuing this matter out of stubbornness, and also out of curiosity as to how far this Kafkaesque saga can go.  Supposedly some supervisor will contact me by e-mail within a day.

[DGuller]

This saga got me thinking about about how our society should deal with private companies that are nonetheless natural monopolies.  It's true that private companies have a right to choose who to do business with, even if their choice is made poorly.  The thinking is that the customers have other choices, and companies which are dumb enough to piss off too many customers for bad reasons will lose out over time.

Does this logic still work for natural monopolies?  In the Internet age, a lot of businesses naturally gravitate towards snowballing by one competitor, as the network effect dominates.  At that point, customers getting banned can have a non-negligible impact on them that cannot be mitigated.  If Microsoft for some reason decides to ban me from purchasing their products, I would be screwed in a lot of ways.  For all we know, I could be banned because of a personal vendetta by someone working at Microsoft.  Or what if Google bars me from using their search engine?

Should there be consumer protections for citizens to protect them from the actions of companies with dominant market shares?  I think there should be, my general view is that a democratic society should give citizens recourse against all kinds of coercion, not just coercion originating from the government.

[Josquius]

Ebay is a mess. Their whole setup is simply a shambles. All emails I get from them are in German with no way to change it purely because I first made the account from a Swiss IP.

[Syt]

https://globalnews.ca/news/8791036/freshii-percy-virtual-cashier-job-outsourcing/

Freshii introduces 'Percy' virtual cashier, outsourcing jobs to Central America

Ordering at your local Freshii may look a little different next time you stop in at the healthy fast-food alternative. The Toronto-based company has launched "Percy" a virtual cashier who takes your order and payment.


"Unlike a kiosk or a pre-ordering app, which removes human jobs entirely, Percy allows for the face-to-face customer experience, that restaurant owners and operators want to provide their guests, by mobilizing a global and eager workforce," explained the company in a statement signed by "Percy."

The virtual cashier is a SaaS technology platform which the company says is aimed at helping the restaurant industry grapple with its biggest crisis �ever – staffing shortages. Designed by "Thomas and Friends" Freshii says the technology will help with labour shortages by creating "a human solution for the ordering/cashier process.

Freshii operates more than 340 stores in North America and abroad and while "Percy" may appear as a method to circumvent Ontario's employment standards, employment lawyers say the practice is entirely legal.

"It's just like any other outsourcing by a company, so, if you hire workers in another country your only obligation as an employer is to ensure that you are in compliance with minimum employment standards legislation of that particular country," explains Fiona Martin of Samfiru Tumarkin LLP, a law firm based in Toronto.

But Freshii is facing criticism for the decision to outsource cashier jobs as the Canadian Labour Congress expresses concern over eliminating important front-facing jobs that are usually staffed by students breaking into the job market.

"You're taking a situation where you're exploiting workers in another country who have a lesser working standard, who have a much smaller minimum wage," explains Bea Bruske of the Canadian Labour Congress. "That's not acceptable, nor should it be acceptable."

The Ontario Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development called the outsourcing of cashiers "outrageous," adding that it "moves entirely in the wrong direction."

"I expect better from a Toronto-based company and know customers will vote with their feet, said minister Monte McNaughton.

The official Opposition is also voicing concern, explaining in a one-on-one interview with Global News that these types of jobs need to be protected.

"To strengthen employment standards legislation to deal with the fact that there are new kinds of technology that are revolutionising our labour market and the legislation has to reflect that," says Patty Sattler, NDP labour critic.

But Freshii maintains the virtual cashier helps redirect staff to "higher value work," pointing to automation in general including self-checkouts and app-based companies like Amazon who have taken people out of the sales process.

If you think your cashiers are overpaid, and you don't trust your customers enough for self service, I guess.

[Josquius]

I've noticed the UK is really horrific for not trusting customers with self service.
The way the machines are set up to weigh your bags and scream at you for not packing right is simply ridiculous.
Contrast to elsewhere where you just scan and go. None of this invalid item in bagging area crap.

Anyway.
This thing looks like something from a 1960s Sci fi - you know, when they imagine one area of tech advancing a tonne but completely fail to consider another. In this case that video chat is super advanced, but the barcode was never invented to automatically add up prices yourself.

[The Brain]

Fast food QOL improved so much with automatic kiosks and apps.

[Sheilbh]

I've noticed the UK is really horrific for not trusting customers with self service.
The way the machines are set up to weigh your bags and scream at you for not packing right is simply ridiculous.
Contrast to elsewhere where you just scan and go. None of this invalid item in bagging area crap.

Because the UK - there's a class angle

Waitrose doesn't have those the machines to weigh bags. There's a few other big supermarkets where they don't - I think it might be in their Metro/city centre stores where a huge chunk of their business is people getting a meal deal at lunch and the queue needs to move quickly.

[Admiral Yi]

My supermarket has that weighing thing.

[Syt]

Some have them, some don't, even within the same chain.

[Admiral Yi]

Interestingly my place gives you a "skip bagging" option that turns off the weighing.

[Josquius]

Interestingly my place gives you a "skip bagging" option that turns off the weighing.

I thought I'd discovered a hack with that. But here it just blocks you and calls an attendant after a few items doing it.

[Grey Fox]

All self checkout I've seen here have weighters()

Walmart, grocery stores & dollar stores.

[ulmont]

This saga got me thinking about about how our society should deal with private companies that are nonetheless natural monopolies. 

Based on my past experience with the gas and electric companies, what we will do is let you choose your ebay marketing provider, so that you pay Shiny-Ebay who then pays eBay for the service access and pockets the difference, while ignoring any requests for help with "we put in a ticket with eBay and we haven't heard back."

...what we should do is, well, not that.