Zipcar Sucks and So Does App World

While a little bit of a rant (though fair, given the underlying frustrations), I do feel like it mirrors a lot of my experience.

Customer service is not being optimized, it is being optimized AWAY. Going even further, it seems as if it couldn't possibly be made this hostile (eg. endless hotline holds; being bounced to different reps several times; not being able to speak to a human at all) unless the goal was explicitly to make it as miserable as possible for the customer.

Problems will always occur, wether the company causes them or the customer, and humans need to be empowered to solve them effectively for all the edge cases where algorithms/AI/ML/etc can't, otherwise it's just a pile of misery.

What incentives are missing to actually improve customer service?

In defense of Airbnb which he also mentions, the few times when an issue arose with a booking I made (as a renter), I was rather swiftly helped by Airbnb, including return calls from agents. But I guess the experience can vary a lot, and might also depend on one’s booking history and estimated future “value” to the company.

This is such a profound writeup. Fundamentally, Silicon Valley and "app for everything" is about business at scale but also about economics of the 1% products. Products created by the 1% for everyone else.

Remember Google killing anything that does not have millions of users? How many such companies can exist and thrive? What happens to the rest of the world - do they become app serfs for Uber/Instacart and Amazon? Elite programmers and startup founders harvest massive paydays while pushing the rest of the world into minimum wage jobs. While I am not thrilled about this reality that we are creating, I see no alternative.

As an Economist, I would like to think, I am being a luddite and markets and innovation find a way.

But as a computer scientist, I see the other side of this techno future and it is bleak.

After reading this I feel a little better buying the cheapest new car possible and keeping if for years rather than go the Zipcar route.

Keep in mind "traditional" car rentals are one of the most hated places to be. Not much better.