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Comment by lamontcg | Hacker News Reader

We need some new snappy word to describe what service providers are doing.

I know you could probably say that its just some other existing legal construct which we should just enforce, but the point is that the media needs some snappy new very specific word to talk about to make politicians pay attention.

Things like swatting, phishing, slamming, gaslighting and boofing we all know about and are easy to write articles on with decent enough SEO.

So what is the snappy new 21st century term for this, so that we can complain about it and write blogs and articles about it and demand politicians do something about it?

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Every business wishes it could be a vending machine. Strip out all employees and customer service and damn the consequences if your soda gets stuck.

Too many people and businesses have been relying on these vending machines, partially because they have no other choice. Everything has been hollowed out, every store runs on a skeleton crew. You know this if you’ve walked around a store wondering if anyone even works there. I never noticed this until I traveled to other countries and found businesses that actually felt like they wanted to please me instead of feeling like I was expected to be grateful that BigBoxStore (tm) exists.

"Deaf corporations" since they cannot hear, "Divine corporations" since they won't listen to you, "Nosumers" as the opposite of prosumers and a nice play with no-sum (you heard it first here)

I like the brainstorming. "Deaf corporations" I think nails the concept and is easy to understand. I don't think its quite snappy enough to roll off the tongue or the keyboard though.

(Although if we don't come up with anything better off the cuff, we could just start calling them "deaf corporations" and then someone moar cleverer might come up with something better later)

I really don't like it as a term, because Deaf people can communicate just fine, thank you. (Also, as a practical concern, I have an interest in Deafness and signed languages, and get irritated by phrases like "turned a deaf ear" which pollute my search results.)

Some more brainstorming:

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"Support Void", "Voiding", "Customer Voiding"

Tossing all customer support requests (and sometimes customers themselves!) into the void.

Pros: Sounds snappy and dramatic. Has humorous resonance with voiding your bowels.

Cons: Meaning not immediately clear. Sounds active when the problem is really more passive.

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"Customer Neglect", "Customer Disservice", "Customer Ghosting"

Opposite of "customer service."

Pros: Meaning is more obvious because of its relation to Customer Service.

Cons: Not quite as snappy.

"Ghosting" is well understood and does describe how the company is behaving.

How about "Support Ghosting"?

Kafkaesque

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