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Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

I really don't get why all the charging networks in Europe require you to sign up, get a card, download an app, etc. It's ridiculous.

2019's "sign up, get a card, download an app" is like 1990's "Leave your name and contact information. Our sales people will contact you."

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I was shocked the other day to see a water dispensing ... thing, that required you to download an app. An app. For water that is free from another very similar water dispensing thing call a tap!

Is it possible this exists to prevent homeless people from using it?

Homeless people don’t have smartphones?

I would imagine that within the class of homeless people, undesirability in public area correlates with likelihood of having no phone?

If I were homeless, a smartphone would be near the top of my list of useful things to have. I'm not sure your correlation holds...

If there were a group most likely to not have a smartphone, homeless people likely surpass those who willfully give them up.

I imagine it would. If you read again I’m trying to distinguish people who are homeless and people who are mentally ill, filthy, and verbally threatening homeless. I don’t think we should restrict people’s access to water, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this was a motivation. I would bet that the least desirable people in society don’t have smartphones generally.

> If you read again I’m trying to distinguish people who are homeless and people who are mentally ill, filthy, and verbally threatening homeless.

You do not seem to have made that distinction anywhere in your comments.

More likely a bunch of overfunded, SV nitwits sent a very successful sales rep

Homeless people almost always have a smartphone, and can usually tell you where the best free WiFi locations are.

I don't think there is any correlation at all between having a phone and desirability.

Homeless people don't deserve water?

I didn’t say I supported it

Well, in Verona, Italy, a few years ago the mayor installed benches with an armrest to make it harder for homeless people to sleep on them [1]. His party (Lega) is now (practically speaking) leading Italy. I wouldn't be surprised if many people would be in favor of forbidding black migrants from "stealing our water".

/rant

Sorry for the OT.

[1] http://www.veramente.org/images/users/veramente/2013_panchin...

It's called hostile design[1] and is not specific to Italian cities.

[1] https://99percentinvisible.org/article/unpleasant-design-dis...

Edited to add this link : https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unpleasant-design-hos...

This unfortunately happens all the time, it's called hostile architecture. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture

Im not homeless and I wouldn't be able to use it.

Found it! It's an app called "Chill H2O" and the company is https://chill.net.au/

Make of them what you will

> 1990's

There are many sites like that on the internet today. Ever had to buy enterprise software?

Those products typically go right to the end of my list.

For what it's worth, that's exactly what they want you to do if you're only casually interested in the product.

There are other ways to accomplish that.

NB: I said other, not better.

https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/7tojtidef_l4r_sdbringw

I find this interesting. Don't you want to spread knowledge about and sympathy for your product as wide as possible to get a good base of advocates, eventually reaching decision makers? (See: Student licenses, open source and such)

Totally depends on the product. OSS? Social? Consumer? Media? Sure! Enterprise/Productivity? Not as much.

What you want is your sales team following high probability of conversion leads.

If I make you jump through a few hoops just to talk to a sales person, then I've already weeded out most of the people who wouldn't buy it anyway.

Well, I know of a couple that lost the chance of participating in some government specs because they had such sites and were hard to reach.

"Casually interested" can mean a lot of things, all look the same to the seller.

Or download Docker... :P

>Leave your name and contact information. Our sales people will contact you.

This happens far too often in 2019 as well.

It absolutely does, but the businesses that work that way are dinosaurs run by people with a 1970s mindset.

Not necessarily.

I recently purchased software to the tune of ~AUD$25k, where downloading and installing a trial version makes almost no sense given the target audience: laser cutter, where each model of machine from any specific manufacturer can have a slightly different dialect of G-Code, and this type of software is often way too complicated for the average operator to nut.

So I sent a couple of emails and got swift responses and screen-sharing demos from both companies I contacted.

The sorts of programs I can download a trial version of and have running in half an our or so are nowhere near as mature as the products we short listed.

So I'm going to suggest it depends a lot on the target audience. When you're handing over multiple tens of thousands for a semi-bespoke software package management, in my experience, typically require interaction with a sales agent. This is in the context of physical industry, I can't speak for the software world, where perhaps spending multiple tends of thousands on online services is common? I have no idea.

It all depends on the product. Once you start getting into niche products which cost thousands or tens of thousands per year to use, the assumption is that the customer is a serious business with funding that has a known problem to solve. There will be a much smaller number of approaches than with a cheap consumer facing product and a conversion is worth a lot, so it makes sense to pair prospective customers with a domain specialist / sales person immediately to tailor the pitch to the specific candidate, modify the solution as necessary to fit the customer's needs, and make sure they are happy.

> Leave your name and contact information. Our sales people will contact you.

What would be the right way?

How about turn up, NFC/swipe and plug in. Not customer experience should be "improved" by an app.

Or insert credit card.

Or one of the many collect call phone numbers.

progress doesn't solve the 'we need money, thus we need clients'; it's a game of whack-a-mole..

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