Who is ready to see Facebook fall? - <AUTHOR>

It doesn't give a shit about it's users. It was foolishly founded without a business model and still doesn't have one. It is a gigantic failure to it's shareholders (aside from the initial investors of course). It was founded by a shady thief. The world is enamoured with it and at the same time prone to being reliant on it.<p>Seriously why is Facebook relevant? It was a nice experience while it lasted but it's turned to crap. It's time for a real, decentralized, pro-privacy social network to take precedent. <comment><USER2> I'm not really sure where you're going with this. You don't qualify any of your arguments and you seem to answer your own question of "how is Facebook relevant" with the idea that "the world is enamored with it."

Gigantic failure to its shareholders? You might be able to make the argument that its IPO was botched by the investment banks, but I don't think otherwise that its shareholders think of it as a "gigantic failure."

<comment><AUTHOR> Being touted as the biggest IPO of all time and then losing half it's value almost instantly is a pretty gigantic failure.

It's really disturbing that it doesn't get more flack for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> -FB is not a gigantic failure. It's one of the biggest Internet successes of all-time. -Advertising has always been the business model. -Mark told investors it was about the long term. -Facebook is relevant because it has massive network effects and they have over 1 billion users. -The web is a big place. If you don't like it, ignore it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I never said I don't like it, I just think it's a sham. It has no real value and it's been shown time and again. Targeted marketing doesn't work and that was their linchpin. They have 1 billion users but that is contorted, that is not active users. Even still, why should a company that has no regard for it's users of which it's entire value is established, have real legitimacy? The fact that they are now charging to "promote" posts is a clear sign of things to come.

<comment><USER4> Actually, according to wikipedia, they do have 1 billion active users.

<comment><USER5> Don't cite Wikipedia, cite whoever Wikipedia cites.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why would a submission about gboard producing adds be flagged? - <AUTHOR> Why would a submission about
google keyboard producing adds be flagged?<p>I can only presume that HN news is under the control of google? <comment><USER2> Submission was [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15189344](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15189344)

I can imagine the article was from 6 weeks ago and contained "fix is on its way" in the title, making it old/misleading news. One of the first comments was "It's long been fixed (it was fixed a few days after it happened)."

</comment><comment><USER3> Misspellings and conspiracy theories are not universally popular.

</comment><comment><USER4> ...</comment>


Ask HN: PDF Signatures - <AUTHOR>

I find myself having to print and sign more and more PDFs these days. Anyone know an app for OS X that will let me put an image of my signature on a PDF and then save it back as pdf? <comment><USER2> The obvious choice is one of the various Adobe tools.

If you're feeling in a not-spend-money mood, you can do it with ImageMagick.

<http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/annotating/>

Writing the command lines for it takes some getting used to, but after you do it you can do some VERY fun things with ImageMagick. I'm using it to do a lot of automated conversion/cropping/etc for the next version of my app.

convert some.pdf some.gif

It is really magic.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can save individual pages from a PDF as an image in Preview (scroll to the page, File -> Save As). This won't work if the PDF is protected but that would likely apply to other applications too.

You can also create PDFs from images with Preview. Open an image and save it as a PDF. You can then drag images or pdfs into the sidebar which adds pages to the PDF.

It's not ideal, but it works.

</comment><comment><USER4> As an alternative you could e-sign the document using a service like EchoSign. While most people use it to send out documents for e-signature, it also has a feature called approve that lets you e-sign documents people have sent you.</comment>


Pope says condoms are okay in special cases - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11804398

<comment><USER2> So, they're going to stop telling Africans that condoms _cause_ AIDS now, are they? I wonder if they'll mention how many have died by listening to their previous advice?

</comment><comment><USER3> Such as ejaculating sperm up a lady ?

no, oh</comment>


Live Multi Stream of Riots - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/gtlb0s/live_multi_stream_please_link_others/ <comment><USER2> Let's not promote violence, protests ok, riots not ok</comment>


You've got 99 Problems but IMAP Shouldn't be One - <AUTHOR> http://blog.context.io/2011/12/youve-got-99-problems-but-imap-shouldnt-be-one/ <comment><USER2> hey. And the fact that different IMAP implementations exist hasn't even been addressed. Like Gmail's handling of deleting alias archiving. Time for new protocols, IMAP goes back all the way to the 80's (!)</comment>


Freedom ≠ money. Freedom = the power to say no - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/meseali/status/1286588476188745730 <comment><USER2> Largely a distinction without a difference.

The fact they have money is what gives them the power to say no.

\- Someone asking for a meeting/to connect? If you have money, people come to you; so it's easy to say no to networking opportunities. No money? You have to take networking opportunities as they come.

\- Someone offering you a job/investment opportunity? If you already have money, you're not worried overmuch about a wasted opportunity. Because at the end of the day you're still secure. If you're unemployed and worried about where your next meal comes from? You have to jump for it.

(Pst. This is also why 'essential workers' are underpaid. Because they have no negotiating ability when their only other option is financial ruin.)

I could keep going on, but if you're not getting the idea you're either: 1.) Being willfully obtuse; or 2.) Someone who has read the Fountainhead too many times (i.e. you're being willfully obtuse).

<comment><USER3> Exactly. At the other end of the scale, consider how much practical freedom people with no money really have.

Being able to say 'no' is nice, but some people would love the opportunity to say 'yes' for a change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Using millonaires examples of saying no to try and prove that freedom !== money feels insulting.

<comment><USER5> That's the problem with trying to dig into a tweet. It's not that deep. It can't be. It's just a virtual bumper sticker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Freedom is having other options.

If you can't say no because you have no other options, then you become a slave to tyranny. Every time.

Slaves have no other options - do as the tyrant says or be murdered.

People who cant quit their job because they have nothing else lined up (or haven't kept their skills sharp), have no other options : and will have to put up with tyrannical bosses and stupid braindead businesses.

People who run up hundreds of thousands in debt and then have to work a job they hate to pay for it have no other options.

You can have other options without having money, but money always gives you the option of doing nothing - which is often the best option

</comment><comment><USER7> Of course, having a high paid, high level role in a company or a decent amount of money makes it much easier/more practical to say no.

It might not work out too well if an office worker/retail employee/normal employee spoke to others like Steve Jobs did, or flat out told their boss that they won't be going to any meetings because they've got better uses for their time.

</comment><comment><USER8>
      Freedom's just another word
      For nothing left to lose

      Kris Kristofferson

</comment><comment><USER9> Of course it's not 1:1 but having money can certainly make it much more easier for you to say no aka "fuck you money"

</comment><comment><USER10> These semantic debates represent the economic freedom to spend countless hours having useless online semantic debates.

</comment><comment><USER11> Not just the power to say no. Freedom = having choices. Always boils down to what choices you have. Contentment is also an indicator of ample choice availability.

</comment><comment><USER12> >Freedom ≠ money. Freedom = the power to say no

Yes please tell me what freedom is for me...i love that freedom ;)

</comment><comment><USER13> Freedom = optionality

</comment><comment><USER14> I though the power to say no proved free will.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's interesting that I can tell that three of these are obsequious, but Jobs' response of "please leave us alone" just begs for a no. Not just a no, but a followup investigation.

Honestly, all four come across as snobby and entitled. Oh, you don't _want_ a meeting? You don't _want_ to do your work? Tough shit, neither do the rest of us.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is it that every time I fix a bug its the LAST solution I try? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Because once the bug is fixed, you have no more reason to try more solutions.

<comment><USER3> Came here to see this, not disappointed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Repeatedly trying solutions to see if they work isn't the optimal method for fixing bugs. Whenever I find myself doing that, I know that I need to stop what I'm doing and come up with a better plan.

If you take the time to understand the problem first -- run test cases to narrow down the precise conditions under which the bug occurs, read the code, step through the code with the debugger, etc. -- you'll spend less time trying and rejecting random solutions because you'll already have a good idea of what you need to do to fix the bug.

Another advantage of getting a good understanding of the code and the bug before fixing it is that it makes it much more likely that you'll actually fix the bug, and not some limited subset of it.

<comment><USER5> When I'm tired and/or lazy I seem to lack a ability to accept the truth. I seek for easy solution instead of actually doing what I already know I supposed to do. Luckily nowadays I am able to recognize this and call it a day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> When you are trying different solutions you are trying them in a specific order based on your intuition of which solution has more probability to solve the issue. If your last solution worked that means the analysis by which you decided the probabilities of the possible solution was completely incorrect. When that happens you should not just move on rather you should think about why this was the case, what were those heuristics that you used to figure out most probable solution and how they were wrong. This introspection will allow you to evolve your heuristics over time and will give you better idea about which solutions are more probable to solve the issue.

</comment><comment><USER7> As in you actually make a [mental] list of things to try and it's always the last one? If not maybe it's just bias. If you do maybe you're really decent at sorting things to try by effort [and like to try easy ones first].

</comment><comment><USER8> How come whenever I find something, it's always in the last place I look?

</comment><comment><USER9> Because it's only then you permit yourself to not do what you think you are supposed to do.

Similar to how what people truly want to do is often written LAST in their list. After subconscious pressure is gone.

</comment><comment><USER10> maybe when you fix a bug, think about the solution you used and if it one of the earlier solutions you tried might be improved to actually fix the bug. Often there can be a range of solutions, just because something you tried didn't work doesn't mean the process you were using was faulty - just the implementation.

</comment><comment><USER11> You have not developed a good intuitive sense for debugging. It will come with time.</comment>


How the iPhone Changed Kayak's Business - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2009/12/09/how-the-iphone-changed-kayaks-business/

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure how they expect to save users' credit card details in a way that can be transferred to the airlines. Can't store the CVV code at all, and everything else is supposed to be encrypted.

<comment><USER3> They can perform a initial auth against the device with the CVV for zero dollars (depending on the interchange network), then from then on perform recurring charges without the CVV at a higher interchange fee. That shouldn't be a problem since airline tickets are higher margin, low volume, purchases.

It mostly comes down to Kayak's business agreements with Visa/Mastercard etc and the airlines involved.

Edit: additionally the article doesn't say it's built yet, so they probably have several road blocks to hit yet. On top of that, they could always ask for CVV when actually making the purchase. Not like you wouldn't have your wallet on you if you have your iPhone

<comment><USER2> Oh, so you think that Kayak will actually be charging me for the ticket -- that would be easy. I got the impression that Kayak would be storing my credit card details and automatically fill out the appropriate airline's website forms in the background... which would require storing all of my credit card details with reversible encryption.

Also, according to my processor there is no interchange fee difference for using CVV or not. There is a financial incentive for address verification, but not CVV. Maybe this varies by processor.

<comment><USER3> It certainly varies by processor, CVV is important for card not present transactions.

I think the tone the author of the article took, and the author's understanding of the technology mislead him/her to make it seem that way.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Donate to the Internet Archive - <AUTHOR> http://archive.org/donate/

<comment><USER2> Something that puzzles me -- why is there only one Internet Archive? It seems like if you think that it's a good idea to have one IA, then you need to think that there should be multiple archives, so that when there's a fire we don't risk losing everything?

From what I can see, the IA has about 10 PB of data (Wikipedia). Backblaze says they can achieve $60/TB, or $600k for 10 PB, so maybe you could build a second one for a few million dollars (?). Are there any national archives / major libraries (e.g., Library of Congress, British Library, Library & Archives Canada, university libraries, etc) that have plans for doing archival like this? It seems like an important project within the scope of these types of institutions, though the budget may be a limiting factor (both the LoC and L&A Canada have suffered budget cuts of late; I don't know what the situation is in other countries).

</comment><comment><USER3> Bitcoins accepted – kudos to this.</comment>


Is Bing Censoring Questions About Microsoft? - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagostyleseo.com/2009/06/is-bing-censoring-questions-about-microsoft/ <comment><USER2> Man, people are really eager to espouse malice to Microsoft. The author's posit is probably not the case. Let's go over 2 things the external viewer should understand about Bing:

 _1._ It represents a major technology refresh. As such, there are bound to be rough spots as the search engineers fine-tune their new index and ranking. Same goes for the sub-sections of the site (like the reference search, video search, image search), most of them have not rolled out all their features just yet, and are still improving results.

 _2._ One area where Google retains an advantage is with very long query strings. Some sub-components of Bing (e.g., reference) can handle long query strings with aplomb, but in general keyword search engines suck with long queries. Google has been working on this steadily for years, and Bing still has a ways to go before matching Google's performance there.

But then again, most few engines answer this query the way Google does, so I wonder if maybe Google has some tuning for this specific kind of query in their ranker.

Check out the yahoo results: [http://idisk.me.com/dfayram/Public/Pictures/Skitch/yahoo- res...](http://idisk.me.com/dfayram/Public/Pictures/Skitch/yahoo- results-20090808-081257.jpg)

Check out the Altavista (yeah, they're still up!) results: [http://idisk.me.com/dfayram/Public/Pictures/Skitch/altavista...](http://idisk.me.com/dfayram/Public/Pictures/Skitch/altavista-20090808-081425.jpg)

Check out the Ask.com results: [http://idisk.me.com/dfayram/Public/Pictures/Skitch/ask-20090...](http://idisk.me.com/dfayram/Public/Pictures/Skitch/ask-20090808-081533.jpg)

Only Ask.com actually pulls back that page. And Ask.com's early business model was devoted to english-ish question queries.

People need to understand that search engine ranking is a problem harder than they understand. Unless you're working on it _right now_ , you probably have no clue the huge amount of subtle thought, heuristics, and outright fudge factors that go into making a good, modern ranking function. Things which were reasonable 2 years ago are now insufficient. This is not a solved problem, and no one really shares algorithms to improve the performance of all their competitors.

<comment><USER3> The basics of search engine ranking are so well understood that if your engine does not pull up results comparable or better than your competition that you have a serious algorithmic problem. The results, after all are a given. The method you use to arrive at them creates some variation but does not magically wipe out certain results completely and replaces them with spam pages. (unless of course your algorithm is seriously broken).

I dare to say the above because I built a proof-of-concept engine about 3 years ago, it took several months and was eventually abandoned because I foresaw that the amount of funding needed to do all the crawling (bandwidth costs) and to scale up the design to hold billions of pages in stead of 100's of millions of pages (pretty good for an amateur effort) was beyond my ability to raise.

The quality of the results had little to do with it, the differences when comparing with google were mostly in how the results were ranked, with google outperforming my little toy considerably. But if a page was present and relevant I invariably found that it was somewhere near the top, but usually not in the 'right' order.

To miss out on relevant content that had been 'seen' would have taken a serious effort.

Keep in mind that ranking only is a factor _AFTER_ you have the relevant results for a query, it is a sorting issue. That does not mean that google or any other engine actually does the sorting when it displays your search results page, but effectively that is what is happening, it is just that for efficiency reasons that the process behind the scenes is setup completely different. Stuff does not magically disappear because of ranking (unless it gets pushed beyond page 100 in googles example, but that means there are more than 1000 links 'relevant' for a given query). You'd have to really mess up to get two engines rank the same page for the same result near the top 1,000 slots lower in the alternative.

I hope this is all clear, these are difficult concepts, the best way to learn about this stuff is to implement a toy search engine/crawler combo yourself. 80legs.com makes it a lot easier nowadays than it was in the past.

<comment><USER2> Hi. I'm an employee of Microsoft, which is why I have to be so vague about them. I was an employee of Powerset.com, which implemented a natural language search engine of non-trivial size. We were recently purchased by Microsoft. I've worked closely on Powerset's search engine infrastructure and with their linguistic packages for just about 2 years now, and I've started to understand some of what Bing is doing in the last 6 months.

The basics of search engine ranking are well understood, but compare those basics to the results that Google and Bing pull up and you start to see some serious discrepancies from naive rankers. This is because query type strongly influences ranking decisions, and there is implicit knowledge that STRONGLY affects ranking. A trivial example is the geoip data of a querier, which can be used to aid ranking for queries like "presidential scandals". But trending news headlines might also be an input to your ranking algorithm. A very good ranker like what Google and Bing employ is a complex beast with special inputs heuristics, and secret tricks which make them as good as they are.

I confess, I am predisposed to be very irritated at your post. You made a toy engine (and no, holding 100's of millions of pages in a keyword index really isn't a huge deal these days), a toy ranker, and now you're an expert on the state of the art? But before I can get too angry I have to admit that when I left mog.com to go to powerset.com, totally ignorant about all but the basics of search, I too had a similar opinion. I figured we'd just use some variant of LSA for relevance and be done with it. Boy, was I wrong. So I can't get too angry at you about it.

<comment><USER3> > So I can't get too angry at you about it.

Thank you for that :)

Ok, so I'll take your word for it then, you are obviously the expert in the field.

I did not mean to step on your toes, I hope that I'm as well informed as you can be about the subject as an 'outsider', if there is anything that you can reveal about the real reasons for these discrepancies then consider me all ears.

I'm not above wanting to learn about this stuff (that's why I'm on HN in the first place), my perspective to date (based on my own effort and whatever I could read up on that is publicly accessible) was that the results are not the hard thing, the spam is where the real problems lie.

Fudge factors does not sound encouraging by the way, possibly you are proving the original posters point here in some unintended way ;)

EDIT: it would be nice if you could state clearly that you are not aware of any direct effort on the part of microsoft that influences the search results in a way that either promotes microsoft and their products and/or changes the results when they are critical of microsoft, including the blacklisting of critical pages. I think that would go a very long way to laying these rumours to rest. It's microsofts trust image that comes to the surface here, and it seems that that is not very high. Chinese walls between search and the rest of the company would have been the way to go here.

<comment><USER2> Sure.

I am not aware of any direct effort on the part of Microsoft to influence the search results in a way that deliberately attempts to obscure negative press about Microsoft's products. I would _not_ be surprised if some security- related things were in fact concealed, but I can see how that might be considered unreasonable in some circles. In any event, I'm certainly not aware of any generic policy in this regard outside of age-related filtering.

Now, I am a low-man on the totem pole working in a satellite office. So I wouldn't necessarily know. If I did know of such a scenario, it'd be a firing- level violation of my NDA to talk about it here, but it'd also be a violation of the ethics guidelines to lie about it publicly, so I probably wouldn't be posting here at all about this subject if I knew anything like that.

If I did discover Microsoft doing this, I would probably resign. But I don't believe they're doing it. Microsoft is very serious about this Bing project. I've met and talked with a lot of the people who manage the product, and they're serious, talented people who clearly understand (and have directly said to us) that a search engine is about results and people trusting those results. It would be incredibly risky to deliberately filter things in Bing and risk discovery at the formative stage of Bing-as-a-brand's reputation.

PS. "Fudge factors" are just some things like saying, "Wikipedia and c2.com are awesome, give them a nice boost." It's pretty clear that Google loves Wikipedia even more than what we know about its ranking algorithm's major features would suggest. Once upon a time all wikis scored very highly in google because of the way page rank and link text worked, but they've since reduced that effect, it seems. Wikipedia's ranking never really went down.

PPS. I really can't talk about specific features of Bing or Powerset's ranking algorithm. One reason for this is my NDA. The other reason is that they're not my primary domain of expertise, so I'd feel uncomfortable lecturing about them instead of their actual architects, who are often unsung heros of a search team.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, that is really appreciated, nice to see you being such an upstanding guy!

It's funny how absolutely crucial search is and how we depend on it but how little we actually know about what goes on inside. I think that is part of what drives these wild goose chases based on limited querying, if there were more transparency then this would not take hold. At the same time the spammers would waste no time or effort trying to exploit such knowledge so out of necessity it needs to be under wraps.

Or maybe a 'many eyeballs' approach here would help too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Which is more likely?

1) Bing engineers came up with a dictionary + algorithm to determine anti-MS content (as opposed to pro-MS content) and applied to the results....

2) Or bing just gives kinda crappy results for most queries?

</comment><comment><USER5> The writer is a bit unfair on the "is microsoft evil" one - because those are news results. So assuming Bing gives equal share to the keywords (which is fair enough, it has no clue MS is the focus of your question) then the news results will, surely, depend a lot on when the story was published.

In which case the Google story (with 2 keywords in the title!) seems a fair one ot come top :)]

EDIT: incidentally I get this: <http://screencast.com/t/dlYz0HMM> so Im not convinced this isn't just waffle.

</comment><comment><USER3> The thing that really surprises me about all this is the surprise. Bing was not set up with Chinese walls in place (they way it should have been done) and has been produced by a company that sees every communication with others as a marketing effort (this may be a good thing, I'm not sure).

They'll do everything they can to portray themselves in a good light.

For instance when you search on bing for microsoft vs stacker the wikipedia page that specifically adresses the lawsuit is not even in the top 10 search results, whereas it is arguably the best page on the subject on the web. Coincidence ? Possible. Probable ? I don't think so.

Bing has its uses, but to get objective information about its owners you'd have to look elsewhere.

The interesting thing with all this is that people are now so conditioned to find stuff using search engines that if a search engine does not list a page it might as well not exist.

<comment><USER6> "Bing" "microsoft vs stacker wikipedia". The first result is a wikipedia page on disk partitioning. Google the same, you get as the first three results wikipedia pages on Stac Electronics and MS-DOS, and as the third result this HN page.

As you can see, Google did what you wanted. However, the litigation was between Stac Electronics and Microsoft, so now try "microsoft vs stac wikipedia". Bing: returns wikipedia category "microsoft criticisms" and the third result is "microsoft litigation". Google: returns the wikipedia pages "stac electronics" and "microsoft litigation".

The conclusions _I_ draw from this is that Bing and Google just have very different algorithms, relatively speaking. Wikipedia appears to have a much lower ranking in Bing than Google, at least in cases where there isn't a page with a very similar name. Here are two searches to compare: <http://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+vs+stac> <http://www.google.com/#q=microsoft+vs+stac>

While I understand why people bash MS, as well as Google (I agree with most of it), I think sometimes its best to take an unbiased look. I cannot see any attempt by MS to remove useful results; the first one is the original text of the lawsuit!

<comment><USER3> Interesting !

Top relevant results for me on google:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics> <http://vaxxine.com/lawyers/articles/stac.html>

(query: <http://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+vs+stacker> )

Bing:

<http://www.vaxxine.com/lawyers/articles/stac.html>

query:

[http://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+vs+stacker&go=...](http://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+vs+stacker&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all)

I did not enter 'wikipedia' as a criterium.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Who cares? :/ who seriously uses bing anyway.

I doubt this is malice, it's just a ridiculously bad search engine which returns bad results.

</comment><comment><USER8> No. Or at least if they are, this is most certainly not proof. This article is anecdotal BS.

</comment><comment><USER9> Quality blog comments:

 _If I were you, I would (Being that youre a SEO person!!!)

Not make it difficult to understand your writing (First Line!!!!)

Before you complain about BING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And get a copy of word from someone !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

What?

</comment><comment><USER4> Oh, please. Not buying it. Nothing to see here.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think he's moaning because he's in the SEO business. Basically, his entire working knowledge is shattered by a viable Google alternative. Now he's got to understand two ways of working (PageRank vs whatever Bing uses). I think that has caused some anti-Bing bias.

Try searching for "visual studio crap" and you'll see how unbiased it is.</comment>


Is It a Planet, or Not? Planets Flora and Mnemosyne? Really? - <AUTHOR> http://astrobasics.blogspot.com/2010/09/is-it-planet-or-not.html

<comment><USER2> A lot of history about planet changing. I had no idea. I usually just think of what I know a word means.</comment>


Is full-time work bad for our brains? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160714-is-full-time-work-bad-for-our-brains <comment><USER4> Stretching 2 hours of work into an 8-9 hour day through meetings and sneaky Reddit/hn usage is certainly bad for our brains. But this is the norm as long as managers interpret productivity as butts in seats.

<comment><USER5> As much as I agree with that I'm still at a loss as to why butts in seats management is still so dominant today.

It's almost as if everybody wakes up, reads Dilbert every morning thinking "Wow, that PHB guy certainly is a role model to aspire to."

It's not as if these patterns can't be changed:

The required technology has been available for more than a decade now.

There are tried and tested approaches for organizing work in a more productive and healthy manner than 9-5.

Still, it isn't happening at a larger scale. While the reasons might simply be risk-aversion or - on a more sinister note - a somewhat implicit understanding that our society is built around a 40 hr work week and we'd face serious upheaval if that was no longer a given, I find those reasons to be tenuous at best in the long run.

<comment><USER6> Because those of us who believe otherwise usually get beaten out and decide to not run businesses any more.

My confounder doesn't like hiring, likes to have a huge pile of cash in the bank to no particular end, and sends people shitty emails if they're late in the morning.

He's successfully killed off enthusiasm and passion for getting things done (mine included), and now people are either making time or leaving.

We got crazy amounts done back when I wasn't cto and was still allowed to lead the tech team - because we'd work from 1pm until the early hours, myopically working on stuff because it was fun to create. That got slowly but surely strangled by timekeeping, requiring people to be in for 0900 (even if they were up half the night working support), and requiring that people only work from the office.

It's impossible to push back against without continuous effort, and eventually one throws the towel in.

Conservatism is easy as it requires you to just maintain the status quo, hence it is the norm in business - whereas change requires effort. It then turns into an endurance race, which can only go one way.

Edit: I don't know why I bother commenting here any more.

<comment><USER7> "confounder", ha.

In my experience, what does a manager do if there's no one around to manage?

And how do employees get recognized for their contributions if there are no managers to track it?

It's a catch-22. My thought is that if companies simply paid people as much as they could, all of this would go away. You wouldn't even _need_ managers anymore. One of managers' more important roles, liaising between departments, could become their full time job, which would be better for everyone too (less overhead with employee reviews and bullshit like that).

How does this work? Rather than a company asking an employee what their salary range is, the employee asks the company what is the most they can afford to pay you, and they pay you that.

<comment><USER8> Forgetting the other most important role, coaching people on the team. And yet another one, shelter from outside unrest. Oh, and blame-absorber. And coordinating efforts, when yet again three engineers in three different places work on the same issue.

You know, this is starting to resemble the "what have the romans ever done for us" skit :)

I'm not disagreeing that many managers don't do this. Or that they do it badly. But managers, when they work properly, do a _lot_ more than liaising.

<comment><USER9> That's the thing, though. Almost no one does their job "properly". They do it well enough to not get fired - thus management is usually inept and useless. So is it the managers fault when they are just fulfilling the norm or is it the job all together? I would suggest management as a position is at fault rather than the people who occupy that space and do the minimum to get by.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a paper on the work that the article cited: [https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_s...](https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_series/wp2016n07.pdf)

There is a critical mathematical mistake with their use of statistical analysis which basically, as an artifact, bakes in this "conclusion" into the "results".

It comes about because they manually add "Working hours-squared/100" into the factor analysis, and then, low and behold, there is a parabola correlated with the data. It's a downward facing one, because an upward facing one, or no correlation will not match as well. But the model is not reality.

There are numerous other conceptual problems with the study, like "what is work?" and a lack of real data on the nature of work beyond what is correlated with socioeconomic indicators, like University education, however, it is remarkable that even at the level of statistic analysis, the work is critically flawed.

I am also disappointed that nobody else on hacker news seems to have pointed this out.

Hopefully, this can serve as yet another example, of how to interpret and understand data the new, be it hacker news or otherwise, presents us with. Statistical data analysis is both hard, and often times misleading.

<comment><USER11> I skimmed the paper and couldn't find this "critical mistake". The nonlinear model you describe is common and appropriate to situations like this.

        y ~ x + x^2

A mistake would be

        y ~ y^2

And even then, it would be appropriate if we're modeling an autoregressive process.

        y_{t} ~ y_{t-1}

<comment><USER10> I'll try to state in this language what I think is the conceptual flaw.

The stated conclusion is "there is an optimum number of work hours, and it is less than 40."

However, their method of analysis is this:

"We fit a non-linear model that is a quadratic model cognitive ability y ~ ax + b x^2 for x work hours / week, and we found a statistical optimum around 25 hours"

The problem with this is that you're trying to find the best fit of a parabola to the data. And you have tons of samples where the work hours are very few / none (unemployed). Because there is a fairly strong correlation with unemployment and cognitive indicators, the parabola is already being "forced down" near hours worked = 0.

Now in this parabola model of estimated cognitive indicators vs work hours, either you are going to get a minima -- and it goes to infinity at working hours -> infinity (of course in real life it cannot really do this, because we only have so many hours in the week, but the statistical model will suggest it) -- or, you are going to get a maxima, which is what actually happens.

It could well be in the data that the indicators are that there is roughly _flat_ , or even _increasing_ response of cognitive indicators to working hours when the number of working hours is beyond a nominal value, but that the unemployed population has somewhat lower indicators.

In this case the model will automatically become a downward curving, parabola with a maxima, suggesting decline with increasing work hours -- even though this is not what the data directly suggests.

This maxima, the fact that there even is a "work hour optimum" that is a smooth, quadratic curve, is a mirage -- the model is not the data.

A remaining question is _why_ the optimum is less than 40 hours. It is relatively easy to construct a statistical case in which it is a curve fitting artifact, despite that there is no direct data even _at_ at the suggested optimum.

One could in principle check to see if this is the case. The data may be available.

For now, there's few graphs on page 20. It really doesn't seem to me that there is a significant distinction between the part time and full time groups -- in fact, the biggest difference is that more women who have a high reading score are not unemployed. Men who have a higher symbols score are more likely to be full-time employed instead of part-time, slightly -- but the converse is true for men with higher reading scores. The difference is not very distinct.

[https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_s...](https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_series/wp2016n07.pdf)

<comment><USER11> > Because there is a fairly strong correlation with unemployment and cognitive > indicators

You're arguing that there's an endogeneity effect -- that poor cognition causes less working? That's a common problem. The authors discuss their use of an instrumental variable technique to avoid this issue.

> parabola is already being "forced down" near hours worked = 0

Not sure what you mean. Typically a model like this includes a constant to allow for a non-zero dependent variable when all the explanatory variables are zero. To do otherwise in this case would be absurd. The idea that the average non-working person has zero cognitive function...

> smooth, quadratic curve, is a mirage

Ever heard of a Taylor polynomial?

<comment><USER10> You'll learn a lot more if you ask, instead of "what could be wrong about what this person is saying", you ask "what could be right about it?"

<comment><USER11> That's exactly what I'm asking for: a clearer explanation.

I don't believe the paper's conclusion, but I don't understand your criticism of it. If you're saying the estimated curve is inappropriate, a better argument would be that they should include more terms of the work-hours Taylor expansion to get a better fit. Or perhaps there are confounding variables left out of the model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm 50yo and am still learning new shit everyday...just a month ago I bit the bullet and learned enough javasc...excuse me ECMAScript, to be pretty damn dangerous :)

Over the past weekend I learned docker and am now running containers all over the place...these aren't trivial things and the speed of which I'm picking stuff up is as fast, if not faster, then it has ever been for me.

The point is I am 10 years older then the age this study targeted, and I find it humorous that they are telling me I am AT LEAST 25 IQ points dumber because I work 50-60 hour weeks.

Plus, where do I tick the box about my lifetime of pretty hardcore drug use and its supposed effects on my IQ?

Now I do get tired...physically tired...from the efforts required to keep up but besides that, my anecdotal experience goes against this research.

<comment><USER13> Yep, I'm just like you. About to turn 60, been a daily hardcore drug user for most of my life, and I've been picking up new languages and technologies every day, all while working 60 hours a week.

I find it quite hurmorous indeed that there are those that would suggest that we are not intellectually capable.

Glad to know there is someone else like me out there. :)

<comment><USER14> Just registered this account to discuss. This is something I worry about, I am a 31 year old dev, only learned to code 5 years ago. I smoke around 28 grams of strong cannabis (kush and haze) a week. Between the ages of 17-25 every weekend consisted either cocaine, ecstasy, mdma, ketamine or whatever really. I currently feel as although I'm playing with as much tech as ever I can't hold as much state in my head when developing and resort to the debugger a lot more. My cannabis intake has gone up in the past year probably. You think its the bud?

<comment><USER15> Cannabis and programming only seem to mix for me when I'm using lightly ( less than a few times a week )

When I moved to Colorado my intake skyrocketed. Was up to around 7 grams a week (16-25%thc) with 90% concentrates mixed in for fun. I was able to work with 0 problems for a few months but started noticing subtle fogginess over the course of my days and like you, holding state was difficult ( along with general debugging slowness )

Naturally I figured it would be wise to slow down consumption and went on a tolerance break. Within a few days I was back to 100% and now only smoke a few times a week. Currently I notice no negative day to day issues and all mental fogginess is gone! I like to sit down after work, toke, and then code.. so happy to report my anecdotal data as positive!

This goes for other drugs too, even "normal" ones like caffeine. I had a nasty habit of drinking a ridiculous amount of coffee and noticed very similar issues as above with cannabis. And like above, cutting the caffeine down was the fix for me.

Take a break for a few weeks ( or at least cut back significantly ) and see how you feel. Smoking that much weekly is only necessary with an extreme tolerance anyway.

Good luck and hope you feel better!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My brain usually goes in to "prepare to shut-down" mode every day at about 3:30pm (having started work at ~9am). I tend to have slow mornings, and stay pretty busy/head-down for the last half of that time.

The funny thing is, it doesn't really matter if I was busy working on hard technical challenges all day, or just reading articles/browsing the web; my brain shuts down the same time regardless.

<comment><USER17> This sounds like it could be a diet thing. Have you tried eating different things for lunch to see if that affects your mid-afternoon mood?

<comment><USER18> Do you have any good resources for diet things? I'm interested in this.

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately, I don't. I tried many different diets, but they either didn't work, or weren't sustainable. I settled on two rules, lost 50+ lbs, and have been able to sustain it for a few years now. My rules are (1) don't overeat, and (2) don't eat processed foods.

It took a few months before I figured out what my portions were, since I don't feel full until about 15-20 minutes after I am. By the time I knew how much I needed to eat in one sitting, I'd become used to eating that amount, so it was a breeze.

I do eat whatever I want, with the exception of processed foods. If I can't make it at home with whole ingredients, I'll likely not eat it. I do cheat every so often, but not much, and not a large amount (I love a box of Raisinettes during a movie.)

As for not being able to think straight after lunch, I used to get that way when I'd eat too much. I used to love feeling full, but it would definitely affect brain function. Now, I get ill when I overeat. I also try to eat a high protein, high fiber breakfast, because it seems to get me further through the day than anything else (I eat a small late lunch).

<comment><USER19> How did you figure out your personal portion sizes? Just approximation (ex: felt too full after 3 eggs, but just right after 2)?

I read plenty of literature on estimating the dietary recommended portion sizes in food, but nothing on how much food I personally should eat in a sitting.

<comment><USER17> Funny you should use eggs as an example. I do feel too full after 3 eggs, but just right after 2. Unless I'm eating just eggs, in which case 3 is just right. Or unless I'm making an omelette, which is almost impossible with just two eggs. In that case, my dog gets a good part of one of those eggs.

As I say, it did take a few months. I also needed to eat a little slower - <USER2> was a fast eater of big meals. Mostly just experimentation and willpower - <USER3> have to get used to waiting to feel full. I go by the two fist rule: your stomach's about as big as your two fists put together.

My family also likes to go out to eat _a lot_. I ask for a box as soon as the food comes, and put half of the food in it. I used to finish the other half, but now I'll usually end up adding a bit to the to-go, and making two meals out of that later. If I'm by myself, I usually just order an appetizer (I do find myself eating more of just one type of dish per meal). If I go with my family, I'm ordering a meal, because, hey, free food!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is why companies need to be "results driven" vs "face-time driven".

"What did you deliver this week? This month? This quarter?", should be the only relevant question in the workplace, managers included.

<comment><USER21> > "What did you deliver this week? This month? This quarter?", should be the > only relevant question in the workplace, managers included.

Unfortunately, there's another camp that (with credible arguments) claims that task-estimates are almost always meaningless. If you buy into that camp, and if someone under-delivers, it doesn't tell you anything about whether or not they are performing poorly. They could simply be the victim of an overly optimistic task-estimate. As a manager, what are you going to do then?

This is pretty much the double-edged-sword in the NoEstimates movement. Either you judge people purely on the basis of results, and end up punishing people who are victims of poor task estimates. Or you don't judge people at all, and watch as people take advantage of the situation to slack off as much as they want. Or you judge them on the basis of hours-spent-at-work, which will then induce the same complaints we see in this thread.

<comment><USER22> What if you judge a team based on the revenue it brought in vs the cost of the employees in the team? Since profit is the real measure of success, it makes sense to use that as the metric. Measuring individual contributions is problematic, no matter the system you use. Measuring based on the entire team is much easier.

<comment><USER23> You would notice that the IT and security teams brought in zero revenue and fire them all.

<comment><USER24> Ha! In fact all you would need is a sales team!

<comment><USER25> Then next quarter you fire them too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Absolutely. How can a society flourish when people are spending all their time for someone else? Full time work leaves little time for your health, family, friends, pets, and so on.

<comment><USER27> But "family, friends, pets" are in the category of "someone else", right?

Also by working for someone else, you make money, which you use for your health, family, etc.

So either way, I don't get the point.

<comment><USER28> Not sure if your being pedantic but your relationship with your 'company' and your friends/family is certainly not the same thing.

<comment><USER29> Most of us don't work for our pets.

(Unless they're cats.)

Maybe the whole idea of working for someone is a strange one. Would people still work towards doing cool stuff if they were free to make/break associations on a project basis?

There might not be the cycle of hyperconsumption driven by superficial novelty we have now. But would it be replaced by something more or less interesting?

<comment><USER30> _free to make /break associations on a project basis_

Isn't that called freelancing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Could it be that there is some selection bias in this study? I don't mean to say the conclusions are wrong per se, but I would think that people working very few hours (unemployed?) or too many hours (factory workers?) are typically less educated than those in the middle, which could explain the IQ disparity.

<comment><USER32> I don't think factory workers are more likely to work 40 hours weeks than white collar workers.

<comment><USER33> If you're allowed to, you go after every minute of that sweet, sweet, overtime. Time and a half (or double time, if you work holidays) is a beautiful thing.

<comment><USER32> That's over 40 vs white collar. This study was just comparing people who worked 40 vs 25.

There's a lot more studies showing that working 60 vs 40 is bad for you cognition, but this one is unique in showing the same effects at a much loader working load.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> To counter-act the click-bait title, here's the basic gist of the article, summed up by Carol Black, one of the people interviewed on the subject:

"The most important thing about work is that it should be 'good work'. If it is good, it does not matter whether full-or part-time."

<comment><USER35> That's not in any way "the gist of the article", it's a comment made by a random person interviewed, and it's her opinion.

The main subject of the article is the extensive scientific study performed by scientists at the University of Melbourne, which showed that working more than 25 hours a week decreases IQ scores in people over 40.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is why I work from home. I can work in sprints and take breaks to make food, exercise, run errands and play video games. You will have to drag me back to an office 9-5 at gunpoint.

<comment><USER13> What is the easiest way to transition to 100% work from home?

<comment><USER36> I had to transition to consulting which meant my productivity was now measured by billable hours and project deadlines vs "butt in chair". It took me over a year to find this type of job. Since then I moved into pre-sales which gives me even more flexibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Full-time work in most professions is just the appearance of full-time work. It actually sets up a culture of dependency, much like welfare, except with people selling their days for money. Many of them don't dare build value for themselves because they are afraid of losing a steady paycheck, getting sued etc.

</comment><comment><USER38> Something similar has been measured in the game industry where Gamasutra has compared working hours crunching vs game review scores.

Here is the link [http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150113/233922/Th...](http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150113/233922/The_Game_Outcomes_Project_Part_3_Game_Development_Factors.php)

</comment><comment><USER39> :(

As if this industry needed any more excuses for it's blatant ageism.

</comment><comment><USER40> I worked three years full time and now on a startup. I've come to realize that most of the performance improvement for me with the latter is attributable to a difference in sleep duration and quality. I'm someone who needs variability (+/\- 2-3 hrs) in when I go to sleep and little to none in total duration. This is especially important when you're exercising consistently (and doubly so for HIIT).

Work life normally doesn't account for sleep, but I feel like it may very well be all the reason for the problems we see. It's no secret that most Americans are experiencing chronic sleep deprivation. And that's linked to a host of other issues like obesity, learning impairment, low energy/productivity, increased stress, etc. In other words, it has a cascading effect on everything else. Most people need around 8 hours per night to function normally and get only around 6.

<comment><USER41> Kind of off-topic, but what has your experience with HIIT and sleep been? I am just starting, and being somewhat obsessive about sleep would be interested to hear your experience.

<comment><USER40> If you're obsessive about sleep, I think you'll be fine :) My mistake was doing 3 20 min sessions of pretty intense HIIT a week and then not getting nearly enough sleep (averaged maybe 6 hrs). I felt chronic fatigue at work - it feels like a heavy wave of exhaustion very different from typical feelings of tiredness. You'll notice your work performance degrade correspondingly. Under normal circumstances you might be able to get away with bad sleep for a handful of days or even a few weeks. Not so with HIIT. You have to have an athlete's level of attention to your recovery.

All that said, HIIT is the most effective kind of exercise I've encountered and I recommend it wholeheartedly!

<comment><USER41> Thanks for the reply. I've been easing my way in with just 30sec on, 30 sec off for 5 minutes a day. I did two sets on day, and had to get up early the next day and was wiped out.

Good to hear your experience!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Nothing is more exhausting than tryimg to look busy when there is nothing to do.

As a freelancer i got some contracts through headhunters that were like that.

Looking back now, i should have quit and found something else.

</comment><comment><USER43> Work is too ambiguous and complex of a concept to directly state that 25 hours a week is optimum over a certain age.

It seems like this article is partially premised on research done on assembly line workers, who are, as far as I'm aware, actually working and doing physical labor for most of the time they're at work. I wonder how well this applies to mental labor? Beyond that, as some people have already commented, white-collar jobs tend to involve a lot of downtime.

<comment><USER44> Left to my own devices I'm pretty sure I'd work a variable number of hours a week, going as high as 80, and probably averaging in the neighborhood of 60.

The tricky part for me is that breaking 25ish actually-productive hours a week isn't compatible with a steady 40ish hour a week job where I'm doing mostly the same thing every week.

Ideally I'd spend 40hrs studying math one week, 80hrs developing a game next week, 30hrs landscaping/gardening + 30hrs building furniture the next, 50 hours writing fiction the next, _et c_. It's doing more-or-less the same work every week, whether I'm in the mood for it or not, that places such a low upper bound on my total productivity.

<comment><USER13> Same here, left to my own devices, I would probably work around 120 hours a week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I talked to my boss and told him I want work only 90% for the same salary because I would still have the same productivity. He agreed! Some times you simply have to ask

</comment><comment><USER46> of course it is, if you hate it but if you only watch tv outside of work, i suggest not quitting

</comment><comment><USER47> It would be interesting to see a study controlling for the "sandwich years". My suspicion is that the sandwich years on top of 40+ hour/week employment causes a lot of cognitive degradation. But, 40+ hour/week employment without the sandwich years would see significantly less, if any, degradation.

<comment><USER48> What are sandwich years?

<comment><USER47> From the article: "McKenzie's team is now looking into the driving factors behind their research such as the "sandwich years" when many adults have at least one person to look after, a child or an elderly parent, on top of working full-time."

This terminology stuck out because I'm smack in the middle of it right now. It's a regular conversation piece when my wife and I get together with other parents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This article makes no attempt to distinguish correlation from causation.

</comment><comment><USER50> Yes. Same with school.

<comment><USER51> Agreed especially the same with university on par in the last years. That really catches up to you

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> legalized ageism anyone?

<comment><USER53> ???

What's being made legal here that was previously illegal?

<comment><USER54> It's not new. But it is legal.

<comment><USER53> The idea that people's brains tend to function differently as they age?

<comment><USER54> The idea that workplaces demand employees to work in ways that discriminate against older people, instead of focusing on increasing the productivity (and health) of all the workers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why this author is taking a stand against Amazon's audiobook - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90549199/why-this-author-is-taking-a-stand-against-amazons-audiobook-monopoly <comment><USER2> See Cory Doctorow's response to the article, and broader "campaign" developed from this theme, in his piece _How the Attack Surface audiobook can reform Audible_ :

[https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/13/theory-of- change/#avalanc...](https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/13/theory-of- change/#avalanche)

</comment><comment><USER3> I was going to ask "Why aren't the _publishers_ doing this instead of individual authors?" and then realized that Amazon would likely retaliate and pull all their books.

However, the publisher that actually pulls this off is going to be able to sell 25% the books and make more money than they currently do. I wonder if Baen would jump on this?</comment>


Verizon's audacious new fee for on-line payments - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/29/technology/verizon_convenience_fee <comment><USER2> So somebody, somewhere in the company figured out that they could save/make $X billon by charging a $2 "convenience fee" or getting their customers to switch over to ACH transactions thus saving 2% - 3% they're losing to credit card companies ... and since customers are frequently locked in by contracts ... or with hardware that won't work on other networks ... or don't even know what a routing number is ... they're captive.

Class action lawsuit ... lawyers get paid ... customers maybe get a coupon for something useless in a year or two, or maybe nothing at all ... and the world keeps spinning.

Maximize shareholder value! Beat those quarterly estimates! Make your customer relationship more difficult! Can you hear me now?

<comment><USER3> Thanks for writing my catharsis for me. Fucking exactly.

I can't wait until we're past this moronic "maximize short-term pennies along with long-term loathing!" mindset.

One of the first things taught about negotiating is, unless you're about to leave the planet never to return, don't make one-sided deals. Eventually they catch up with you, if only because no one wants to work with you anymore. It's such a valuable lesson. When will corporate America realize there's more money in the long game?

<comment><USER4> It's cynical, but one has to at least consider that the reason is because there _isn't_ more money in the long game. Over time all markets become commoditized, which is sort of a "one sided contract" in the consumers favor. This kind of cheating can be seen as attempt by the service providers to fight that trend.

<comment><USER5> Oh, there's still money in it. Just not at the margins that Verizon has grown accustomed to. And I think this sort of commodification is still a long way out. The capital necessary to build the nation's largest wireless network is only available to a handful of companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Much as I like to jump on VZW, I don't think that Verizon should be vilified for this one. By my back-of-the-envelope math, Verizon is passing on the cost of credit-card processing to their customers, and no more (2% CC processing fee on a $100 phone bill == $2).

I would much prefer to see customers realize how much they are gouged by credit card companies every day. Some small businesses (e.g. gas stations, the deli on the corner) already do this, and I'd like to see other large businesses follow suit. It's time for people to realize the sorry state of payments at-present, perhaps opening the way for a better alternative. Some are saying that Verizon is abusing their captive customers, but I see this as Verizon trying to escape captivity as a customer of Visa, MC, and Amex.

<comment><USER7> Humbug! CC fees, while annoying, are a cost of business which should already be included in the math they use to determine what I'm paying them each month.

If they had to mail out a paper envelope & invoice and then pay somebody to handle my check back to them, do you think that would cost them more or less than $2 each month? I'm thinking it would be pretty darn close to $2 to deal with that.

Should they be adding fees to my bill every time I visit their website, so that they can cover those costs too? Should they be charging me every time I contact a customer support representative?

This is as indefensible as Bank of America's ATM fee.

I've been a 5-line Verizon customer for at least 4 years, I've been out of contract for at least a year, and I'm calling them in the morning to express my extreme displeasure at this. If they don't reverse course on this I'm switching to Republic Wireless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The fee will help allow us to continue to support these single bill payment options ... and is designed to address costs incurred by us for only those customers who choose to make single bill payments,"

Isn't running a for-profit company supposed to address costs associated with taking customers money? Convenience charge could simply be translated to a "because we can charge".

<comment><USER9> Not quite. A convenience charge is a naked, unbridled contempt charge.

They do because they can, and nobody will stand up for you. Nationalize. Banish the execs to Monster Island. Start over.

<comment><USER10> > They do because they can, and nobody will stand up for you. Nationalize. > Banish the execs to Monster Island. Start over.

Right, because having _one_ company works so much better than having several, and because governments do _so_ much better at listening to their "customers", and because you can always stop paying if you don't like the service. Oh, wait, none of those things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If they were charging for ACH payments I could understand the outrage. But passing through some of the credit card fees they pay hardly seems to be a capital offense. The only reason you don't see lots of companies passing through the cost is that their agreement with VISA et al forbids passing through the cost (which is why this is characterized as a convenience fee and is not exactly equal to the credit card fees they pay).

Simply put, there are more important things to complain about than this.

<comment><USER12> The problem is, they don't charge for _recurring_ credit card payments. Only _one-time_. And as someone who's signed a lot of merchant account agreements, there aren't different charges from Visa/MC/Amex for _recurring_ payments vs. one-time. The fees are the same--this is just a ripoff from Verizon.

<comment><USER13> Customers who have recurring payments set up are undoubtedly cheaper to service than one-time payers. They're less likely to fall behind on their bills, and getting customers to pay up after the fact costs money. This sounds like a reasonable charge to incentivize recurring payments.

<comment><USER14> A recurring payment, though, is more likely to fail. For instance, if a card is at the limit, a recurring payment simply fails, and then you've got to find some way to notify the customer that they need to address the issue.

Someone coming to your site to pay his bill, on the other hand, gets notified right away if there is a problem and so can get right on addressing it.

Also, when people get new cards they often forget to update places that have the card on file, leading to much hassle for the vendor.

Another advantage of customers who are paying month-by-month at your site--you have up sell opportunities that you don't have with customers who are on recurring billing.

For a service that the customer considers to be reasonably high priority, I suspect that the combination of less billing attempt failures and the extra money from up sell attempts make the month-by-month manual customers actually cost less to deal with then the recurring customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One thing customers should be aware of: when carriers change the terms of your contract, you are normally free to cancel your service without paying an early termination fee. For many people, this can amount essentially to a massive discount on your phone.

<comment><USER16> I want to see more research on this topic. If this is true, I'm happy to do it. I pay every month online via credit card, which was a PitA as it was...this is flat out silly.

<comment><USER17> There is a great deal of case-law governing material changes to contracts, in particular: materially ADVERSE changes. Despite what may be in your ISP contract, case law takes precedence. Many changes to pricing, service, etc. offer you the opportunity to refuse the new terms without being penalized by existing terms such as the termination fee. [insert standard IANAL disclaimer here]

You just need to know a few tricks of the customer service phone center game. Do these steps in order, stop whenever you get your way. Note that _you must be willing to go all the way_.

0) Make sure that the company only has a single payment mechanism on file for your account: a credit card

1) Call the company

2) Slam zero, pound, star, shout "AGENT" a bunch, and throw in a few swear words to trigger the system to send you to a live person ASAP

3) Ask to speak to someone in account management; preferably a retention specialist

4) Mention the materially adverse contract change

5) Tell them you'd like the change not to apply to you

6) Threaten to terminate your account, unless they provide an agreeable alternative offer

7) Refuse termination fees on grounds of materially adverse contract changes

8) Assure he operator that you will issue a chargeback for any such termination fees

9) Authorize cancelation of service

You should also keep a timestamped log of every person you speak to. This includes both their informal name and some kind of unique identifier, such as a phone extension number. Your log should include every material claims/fact you provided them and they provided you, especially specific numbers and identifiers, such as prices/rates, case numbers, and descriptions of processes.

Follow up: After you get your way. _Call them right back_!! Get someone else on the line and ask them to read to you your case notes. Call operators will lie to you to get you off the phone. Your case isn't resolved into someone totally different reads the case log back to you as you expect it to be. When you call, don't hint to them that you don't trust them. Tell them you got disconnected & ask them to read back the log aloud so that you are both on the same page. You don't want the new operator to be tainted by putting you on hold to go talk to the old operator.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for that. Looks like I'll have to wait to use it - they've rescinded the fee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'll never understand this. It costs them less to process my charge online in terms of manpower, and is at least as cheap if not cheaper on charges incurred for them upstream.

This is the truest definition of 'convenience charge' though, as they are, in fact, charging you for convenience. As a Verizon customer who has been considering dropping their cable service for some time (due to Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc.), I'm now giving thought to dropping them as an internet provider as well since we have a lot of good options in Maryland. I do love their internet service, but I hate bullshit charges that don't at least make sense.

<comment><USER19> I'm interested in the good internet options in Maryland that you speak of. My mom lives in Montgomery County and is looking to switch from RCN.

<comment><USER20> Also had Comcast in MoCo, definitely solid internet, overall pretty pleased.

<comment><USER21> Comcast is great if you want to give your money to a SOPA supporter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Thinking of the differences between the situation in the U.S. and western/central Europe (which I'm somewhat familiar with):

Cellular, and anything else to do with physical infrastructure, might be the few cases in technology where the size of U.S. market works against creating value for the consumer. In most everything else, having access to a common market of ~300 million people is awesome; it's not so awesome when you have to be able to service a substantial amount of them to get critical mass.

Wondering: in Canada, we have upstart cellular operators competing by offering lower prices for service covering only the largest urban areas of the country. So if you're in Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary (and a couple of other places), you have more choice, in Flin Flon not so much. Anything like that in the U.S.?

<comment><USER23> I really wouldn't hold up the Canadian mobile industry as better than the US. It's one of the few markets actually worse than the US (data, call charges, etc.).

The US has regional or urban carriers; often they're MVNO, or have some local infrastructure and use another big carrier for other areas.

They're mainly confined to the low end/poor/no credit market. Until recently, they barely had featurephones. Probably the big ones are Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile, and MetroPCS.

<comment><USER22> > I really wouldn't hold up the Canadian mobile industry as better than the > US. It's one of the few markets actually worse than the US (data, call > charges, etc.).

That's what I keep on hearing. But I also keep on hearing about $60, $100 smartphone bills in the U.S., and the last time I paid that much was on a shitty contract with Rogers in 2010. When I signed that contract in early 2009, there were no better options - I had to sign up for a year if I wanted Blackberry push email, and it didn't matter that I had my own phone (carrier subsidy $0).

Now I pay $29 for unlimited local voice, unlimited text, unlimited-with-an- asterisk data, contract-free. My starting costs were a used $200 Nexus One and a $25 SIM card (much too much, but whatever). My carrier right now has a promotion with unlimited Canada/U.S. voice for $40 and unlimited text/data. The catch is that I would pay extra for service in the boonies, but I don't need service in the boonies. At the very least, I have the choice; does your average Android owner in the Bay Area or in Seattle, if so, what are the choices?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was under the impression that credit card providers basically say "you can't charge extra for paying by credit card".

What would happen if Visa or Mastercard said "you're in violation of our terms, we're cancelling your merchant account"?

<comment><USER25> I believe those terms got banned in one of the financial reform bills of the past two years. They're not allowed to prohibit discounts for other payment forms anymore.

Perhaps it's this one:

> (a) With respect to credit card which may be used for extensions of credit > in sales transactions in which the seller is a person other than the card > issuer, the card issuer may not, by contract or otherwise, prohibit any such > seller from offering a discount to a cardholder to induce the cardholder to > pay by cash, check, or similar means rather than use a credit card.

[http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-500.html#fdi...](http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-500.html#fdic6500167)

<comment><USER24> Looking at Visa's current terms, they don't seem to run afoul of those regulations - but Verizon is still violating them. Visa says you're allowed to offer a discount to non-credit-card payments, but it _has_ to be presented to the customer as a discount for cash/gift card/e-check/whatever payment, rather than as a surcharge for paying with your credit card.

<comment><USER26> If that is the case then this change would have to be a 2 dollar increase to all bills and then removed if you pay not using a CC. In which case this would be a material change to the contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> We're going to need to break up the telecoms again. AT&T and Verizon are too big to offer halfway decent service.

</comment><comment><USER28> This seems like the kind of problem the open market should solve. Unfortunately, competing with Verizon isn't about the $2 convenience fee, it's about the nationwide 4g network.

Every company has a right to make a profit, however they will have to provide value for it. This is a value reducing proposition. If reddit thinks Godaddy is evil, I'm excited to see what happens with this.

</comment><comment><USER12> IANAL-Is it possible to set up a class-action lawsuit on this? We, Verizon customers, entered into a 2-year contract agreement. Now, in the middle of that contract, they are changing the agreement. At the least, shouldn't they be forced to wait until a customer signs a new contract to institute new fees?

Perhaps someone with more legal experience can chime in. As a Verizon customer who just signed a new 2-year agreement, I'd be willing to join the class and spread the word about it.

<comment><USER29> I assume they will respect any existing contracts. The class action stuff around fees has generally been because the provider misrepresents the nature of the fee. For instance, they advertise a $39 a month plan, but then throw in a pure revenue surcharge with a description that makes it look like a federal tax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sprint kinda did the same thing. Seems they hid it better tho -- <http://www.sprint.com/spendinglimit> 4th paragraph mentions the charge. Anyone who didn't sign up for auto-pay is charged an extra $5 a month, even if you pay on time.

</comment><comment><USER31> I have Verizon set up in bill-pay through my bank. When I send them a payment using this method, is this considered a "one time" payment? The article is not very clear on that. I don't have an automatic recurring payment setup, I send the payment manually every month via my bank account.

<comment><USER32> No, you don't get charged by using your home baking bill pay system.

<comment><USER31> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Bank of America, NetFlix, GoDaddy and now Verizon.

Companies in 2011 that suffered self inflicted wounds to their brand.

</comment><comment><USER34> time for everyone to start paying by paper check -- let's see how long it lasts :)

</comment><comment><USER35> Playing devils advocate: could this be a revolt against the credit card companies over their fees, rather than an attempt to screw the customer?

</comment><comment><USER36> I'll do the same thing I did with godaddy and leave. Verizon was already on my shit list for tracking every website I visited via my phone.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is a god damn outrage. To what point will corporate america keep pushing the envelope until consumers revolt?</comment>