Unshittification: 3 tech companies that recently made my life… better
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Is it me or is this really hard to read? (really could just be me)
For an article that talks about "companies that recently made my life" I felt like I had to get several paragraphs in to even know what was being talked about with some of these.
For an article that talks about "companies that recently made my life" I felt like I had to get several paragraphs in to even know what was being talked about with some of these.
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Thanks for writing this. The companies that take pro-consumer decisions like this should be called out for doing the right thing, or at least not the actively bad thing.
Maybe some good press like this will give brave employees at other companies some ammo when they are fighting their own internal enshittification battles? One can hope.
Maybe some good press like this will give brave employees at other companies some ammo when they are fighting their own internal enshittification battles? One can hope.
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Two of the examples are invasive DRM schemes that are slightly less invasive than they could be, and the third one is a company generously agreeing to accept the customer's money. It's AMAZING how low the customer service standards are in software.
EDIT: This was the article that annoyed me enough to post. Something about the above examples being regarded as "unusually good" really drives home the state of the modern software industry.
EDIT: This was the article that annoyed me enough to post. Something about the above examples being regarded as "unusually good" really drives home the state of the modern software industry.
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I like the article and good customer service really can make you appreciate a company.
That said I had the distinct feel that you (and we) have been beaten so badly that stories of abusing customers less now qualify as good customer service. In each of these cases why did fixing a terrible solution for key customers (dongles), agreeing not to perpetrate fraud (disabling something you bought), or simply taking your money for a service (max) now qualify as good service? Why can’t this be the baseline and good be reserved for thinking of the customer first or really going out of their way to help?
In many ways that these are good examples exemplifies how bad things have become. Sigh.
That said I had the distinct feel that you (and we) have been beaten so badly that stories of abusing customers less now qualify as good customer service. In each of these cases why did fixing a terrible solution for key customers (dongles), agreeing not to perpetrate fraud (disabling something you bought), or simply taking your money for a service (max) now qualify as good service? Why can’t this be the baseline and good be reserved for thinking of the customer first or really going out of their way to help?
In many ways that these are good examples exemplifies how bad things have become. Sigh.
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The main examples here are just of decent customer service and reasonable product sales expectations. In some ways, it is sad that when we have an experience that is not completely horrible, we call it out for being good. The main example here of unshitification would be the first one. A company "may" have listened to their customers. In reality though, it was probably too expensive for them to maintain open socket connections or having constant callbacks to their systems. I wonder if they did it for the consumer.
As to adding a new channel with Amazon Prime, how easy will it be to cancel it at the end of the month. Finding that option can be sneakily difficult. The middle company. That is just good customer service.
As to adding a new channel with Amazon Prime, how easy will it be to cancel it at the end of the month. Finding that option can be sneakily difficult. The middle company. That is just good customer service.
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So basically they still made your life harder and you learned to enjoy it?
I guess we're losing Ars as well.
I guess we're losing Ars as well.
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Most Ars articles are pretty long. I didn’t find this one to be out of the ordinary from what I usually read here.
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Yet.
Meanwhile beatings will continue until productivity improves, when there will be a day off beatings before resumption as the next bonus is chased by the C-suite.
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A recent example for me was Procreate. $13 one time purchase for a full-featured iPad drawing app? No subscriptions? Absolutely take my money!
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Unshittification is almost always a result of treating people decently and not innovation.
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If it's any consolation I found a French company that was even worse. In order to "annuler mon abonne" I was required to fill in a massive survey of everything but my inside leg measurement. The result of this was a half price subscription offer...which I declined...to be offered an even cheaper subscription...which I declined...a couple of begging emails and then I got an acknowledgement that my subscription had ceased, followed by about two emails a week asking me to reconsider, ignoring the "unsubscribe" button.
Tu sais ce que je veux te dire? I believe the word "emmerdement" already exists in French.
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If you're anything like me, it's because you went into the article hoping to quickly find out, "Are any of these unshittifications useful to me?" Since there was no summary at the top of each section (say, the way there might be in a board game roundup), you had to read way down into each section to find out what was being discussed. Frustration was probably added by the first two being related to niche products, and from the same niche, to boot.
I think the article probably wasn't intended to be read that way. As a bigger picture discussion of unshittification, it mostly focused on those specific examples anyway, but it would have been great to tie them into a broader narrative with more traditional journalism techniques like interviews, etc. Find out why these companies went the way they did, that kind of thing.
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It's really sad that we've reached the point where what should be totally normal customer service is being called out as exceptional.
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The article photo has no credit or caption. Can I assume that's the Nate Anderson 1990's model?
Edit: Now has a credit.
Edit: Now has a credit.
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I know this sounds super aggressive, but this reads like a bootlicker piece. This should be barebones customer service, not standout performances.
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Didn't you get a raw deal from Native Instruments? They vetted the transfer, then rescinded it, then gave you a lesser quality product (can't transfer) for the same cost.
Sure, they didn't completely screw you over, but you are still worse off in a way that is completely by Native Instruments' power.
Sure, they didn't completely screw you over, but you are still worse off in a way that is completely by Native Instruments' power.
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This is honestly a fair assessment.
I mean, come on folks, "Better DRM?" The celebration is that they had to buy a $50-70 dongle just to use what they already bought.
How is that not shitty? The real unshitification would be no DRM at all.
"Look at these scraps given to me by companies! I'm so grateful!"
This is a terrible article that's also just poorly written, it meanders all over the place.
To be honest I think some folks are thanking the author here without reading it. Like assuming, "oh this doesn't apply to me but I appreciate such articles. Thank you, Ars!"
I appreciate the sentiment but it's misplaced here.
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Would definitely be better if author simply titled the paragraph headers with the product/company name.
Saying that, this is small potatoes. Losing 6 minutes of your lifespan per cigarette is nothing compared to the stress Dan Goodin puts you through. That one useful link that leads to the fix/mitigation for the vulnerability affecting you in any of his security articles? Hah, happy slogging!!
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I agree. This entire article is just a list of baseline, expected behavior at best.
It's not high praise to say, "I conducted a legal transaction, the company tried to steal it back from me via DRM, and then decided not to steal it back when I complained."
It's not high praise to say, "this wildly intrusive DRM that wouldn't let an internet connection fail for 3 minutes without destroying the project you were working on no longer does that thing."
This is both a pretty bad article by Ars standards, and also a sad commentary that anyone would look at this behavior and say, "hey, maybe I should write an article about some good companies!"
I've had truly exceptional customer service a time or two. None of what's in this article meets that standard.
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What do you mean, "yet"? They already did and the author is celebrating the removal of that requirement and the simple solution of buying a device for $50-70 instead.
The "gratitude" there was kinda painful to read. Oof
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Are you complaining that people are misusing the word enshittification or are you complaining about it being "made up?"
Because all words are made up
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Never underestimate the power of good customer service.
(This may come across as shilling, but it is just my personal experience as customer).
I work in industrial automation, and within that sphere I use various HMI products. One of them is Ignition from Inductive Automation. With this product:
While Ignition isn't perfect, the openness and responsiveness of the company has made me a huge fan.
(This may come across as shilling, but it is just my personal experience as customer).
I work in industrial automation, and within that sphere I use various HMI products. One of them is Ignition from Inductive Automation. With this product:
- You can download and use the full product for free. If it's unregistered then it only runs for 2 hours at a time. After which you simply have to click on a button to restart it - and there are no restart limits.
- The documentation is fully online and anyone can access it for free.
- They have online courses that cover almost all of the product's functionality, and you can do all of the courses for free - and they keep track of your progress.
- They have a public online forum where paid staff members are available and happily answer questions. This is on top of the typical help desk via paid support.
- They do nightly builds and publish what has changed in each build.
While Ignition isn't perfect, the openness and responsiveness of the company has made me a huge fan.
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Please explain to me and everyone else here what the difference is between "fake" and "real" words.
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It's wonderful that things are a little less shitty...
... But also rather sad that this is rare enough that it seemed justified to make a new word for 'bare minimum'.
... But also rather sad that this is rare enough that it seemed justified to make a new word for 'bare minimum'.
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I've become more and more disillusioned with anything that is a subscription, as it's just infuriating. Likewise, support calls keep getting harder and harder when you have to navigate through an impenetrable maze of phone automation and AI slop. It's really a shame that these little experiences feel so damn refreshing.
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Years and years ago I attended a time-share presentation in Florida (did it for the laughs only). I went through the expected high pressure sales spiel, and finally pissed off the salesman when it was obvious that I wasn't buying his BS. The path to the exit door took me through another room where I was asked "Did you forget something?". It turned out that what I forgot was a time-share contract, and this other room was set up to try and sell at a huge discount the time-shares of people who were trying to dump their time-shares. I simply laughed and continued walking.
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I don't know how you got that. The previous options were dongle or always-online activation. They got rid of the always-online option and replaced it with activation that's tied to the machine. He didn't have to buy a dongle.
I generally agree with your point that this is barebones customer service, though, not something worthy of celebration.
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I was probably too happy to see the headline.
Customer service from some major online account-holders like Google and Meta have seemed to nearly vanish. Ever see a web comic artist have their profile (obviously) hijacked and reported on for weeks with no action?
I do generally enjoy the increase of services that let me fast track use my google, meta, or amazon account in lieu of making up another set of credentials. Do beware with Amazon subscriptions that a few years ago I needed to make a fairly determined hunt to shut off Music, Audible or channels.
I'd like to see more articles like this, perhaps with some community input, on products and services that are becoming more consumer friendly.
Customer service from some major online account-holders like Google and Meta have seemed to nearly vanish. Ever see a web comic artist have their profile (obviously) hijacked and reported on for weeks with no action?
I do generally enjoy the increase of services that let me fast track use my google, meta, or amazon account in lieu of making up another set of credentials. Do beware with Amazon subscriptions that a few years ago I needed to make a fairly determined hunt to shut off Music, Audible or channels.
I'd like to see more articles like this, perhaps with some community input, on products and services that are becoming more consumer friendly.
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Content warning - unbelievably good ISP support story ahead...
After decades of suffering Comcast in two different states, I switched to Ziply Fiber in my new digs several years ago. About a year in I got weird and terrible packet loss issues occasionally. I contacted support and after talking to the rep about all the things I tried and tested they said "looks like you've already tried everything, let me get you straight to our engineers". Got on the phone with this lady who knew a ton more about networking than I did (never had that experience with Comcast lol). She said she'd come by immediately and was at my door a half hour later. She fixed it but said she wasn't sure how this happened and she setup extra monitoring. Things were smooth for a few days and it started happening again. I call Ziply and tell them I worked with this engineer, they go "oh yeah I can see it here in your history, let me get you straight back to her"!! Got her on the phone, she went back to the extra monitoring she set up days earlier, found what the problem was and said she'd have to fix something on my street later that day. By the evening everything was solved and it's now been rock solid for years.
After decades of suffering Comcast in two different states, I switched to Ziply Fiber in my new digs several years ago. About a year in I got weird and terrible packet loss issues occasionally. I contacted support and after talking to the rep about all the things I tried and tested they said "looks like you've already tried everything, let me get you straight to our engineers". Got on the phone with this lady who knew a ton more about networking than I did (never had that experience with Comcast lol). She said she'd come by immediately and was at my door a half hour later. She fixed it but said she wasn't sure how this happened and she setup extra monitoring. Things were smooth for a few days and it started happening again. I call Ziply and tell them I worked with this engineer, they go "oh yeah I can see it here in your history, let me get you straight back to her"!! Got her on the phone, she went back to the extra monitoring she set up days earlier, found what the problem was and said she'd have to fix something on my street later that day. By the evening everything was solved and it's now been rock solid for years.
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I agree that this is more of a companies-moving-back-to-how-things-should-be than a companies-doing-something-better but it's a start.
It sounds facile but we could do with more articles saying look-how-nice-this-boring-company-does-things and less 30-under-30s-who-will-be-charged-with-wire-fraud articles, so I'd say more to this kind of article though. Maybe even an award.
Me I like Vic Firth drum sticks. You buy these lengths of Hickory finished nicely and then hit things with them, the choice of thing is completely up to you. No internet, app, AI or long-form EULA. They aren't that good at social media so I don't here about them as much as their noisier competitors. The only disruption is to my neighbours.
It sounds facile but we could do with more articles saying look-how-nice-this-boring-company-does-things and less 30-under-30s-who-will-be-charged-with-wire-fraud articles, so I'd say more to this kind of article though. Maybe even an award.
Me I like Vic Firth drum sticks. You buy these lengths of Hickory finished nicely and then hit things with them, the choice of thing is completely up to you. No internet, app, AI or long-form EULA. They aren't that good at social media so I don't here about them as much as their noisier competitors. The only disruption is to my neighbours.
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A company that quickly corrects and sincerely makes right a lapse in service deserves credit. In these first two cases, the company had aggressively unfriendly policies that 1) they agreed were costing them money, and in the second case, represented heavy-handed and thoughtless abuse. Jeebus, if they could track the transaction to the email of the specific license to the end user, they already knew they had approved the transaction. This is not “deshittification” in any way. It’s undoing one single fuck-up.
It’s nice Max wants to make money on their investment in buying up the monopoly on viewing rights and lets you help them. Very noble, indeed.
I try to give credit where it is due. Not feeling that vibe here.
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Agreed. "Company meets the bare minimum baseline to have a functionally usable product" is not unshittification. It's table stakes.
A company that completely broke their product to the point of being unusable, or who remotely bricked a paid-for second-hand product, gets credit for fixing that – but being quick and polite about executing the basic level of customer support necessary to not have the customer drag the company to small-claims court is not unshittification.
I do appreciate it when a company with genuinely good customer service is called out as being good. Like I get from Infinite Cables, who – upon being told of the first assembly mistake I've seen them make in five years – replied within an hour to say "do you want us to expedite replacement parts ASAP, or do you want to try this simple procedure that should resolve the issue you observed in 4 minutes and we'll issue a credit for these?" My own firm's products are many orders of magnitude more complex, but even so, we try very hard to be the company whose support engineers (and I do mean engineers; half of them are P.Eng and the rest all have at least one university degree) will be there for you when you're 7 time zones away and something's not quite right on your production line.
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