This shouldn't be downvoted. There is definitely at the minimum Microsoft employee vote brigading at this point. HN needs to start making upvotes, downvotes, and time of vote public.
Accusations of astroturfing or shillage without evidence are a serious breach of civility on HN. Since you've done it before and ignored our request to stop, we've banned your account.
Bingo. Automation is cheaper, not higher quality. The only people that consider not talking to service agents or cashiers an improvement in service have social anxiety issues or something similar. A checker at a grocery store actually does all of the work for you. Objectively it is better in every way unless you consider it a negative to be involved in human interaction.
How about when they scoff at your having brought re-usable bags, slightly demanding of them to do something different? Or when they pack your goods in a way that damages them? Or puts colds next to warm, or highly heat conductive items? Or when they're clearly sick, and likely spreading that illness to everyone that comes through that lane? Or when they're at the end of their shift, hate their job, and give you that lovely dead-eyed stare that just makes you feel warm and fuzzy when you try to make small talk?
How about when they reek of cigarettes? Or when they make a mistake (and they do) and all the people behind you start eyeballing you and the cashier, clearly upset at the delay? How about when they ring up produce incorrectly, or double count items, overcharging you? How about when something comes up wrong, and then they argue with you, because they're stressed with a queue to process?
Human cashiers being objectively better in every way than self-service automated lanes is not correct, especially as you sample more and more cashiers. SOME cashiers are better. Many aren't.
> The only people that consider not talking to service agents or cashiers an improvement in service have social anxiety issues or something similar.
Or they are in a hurry. I will take the faster option every time and that usually means no human.
> A checker at a grocery store actually does all of the work for you.
What if there was no work to do? Amazon is exploring that concept and if it works as described (I haven't used it yet, but have walked by and it seems to) seems objectively better in every way.
> Or they are in a hurry. I will take the faster option every time and that usually means no human.
Correct, but this is the result of the store intentionally routing you through the self checkout by under staffing cashiers to save money.
>What if there was no work to do? Amazon is exploring that concept and if it works as described (I haven't used it yet, but have walked by and it seems to) seems objectively better in every way.
Excellent point. I should have used "self service" instead of "automation". It was a poor choice of words on my part. Full automation to remove anyone from needing to do the work would certainly be objectively better. The article linked is more about self service than automation.
I would highly recommend spending an evening reading through Martin Fowler's blog. Has has a gift of breaking down concepts into very pragmatic and digestible explanations.
Safari is intentionally crippled in several areas. Its very specific and obvious. It is dishonest for you to at this point pretend Apple is going full force for web standards while they are explicitly not implementing features that are available everywhere else. And how those specific features line up directly as features which allow web apps to compete with its native application market.
Edit: To anyone seeing this down-voted. Apple employees typically down-vote stuff like this so please do not take this being greyed as anything but manufactured opinion.
Presumably the downvotes are because your comment went uncivil, by accusing another user of dishonesty and by insinuating astroturfing without evidence. Neither of those things are allowed on HN, so please don't do them again.
> Which makes sense since nobody wants notifications on their phone from a website.
When the alternative is installing an app just for some simple notifications I temporarily want, hell yes I want that option. Let's hope PWAs get there and the browser vendors figure out good UI to deal with them.
Instead you get "stupid prompts from mobile Safari" to install apps, which websites mostly do so they can send you push notifications: same prompts, even more annoying (as often the "carrot" is that some of the content or UI requires the app).
Honestly I don't see a lot of those anymore. Perhaps it's the ad blocker, perhaps it's the fact that they realized it doesn't work well, or perhaps I just don't go to sites that push it.
anybody else here actually build a progressive web app only to find that safari supports none of it's features? chrome + android (maybe even microsoft) are so far ahead here it's not even funny
Edit: My apologies for sounding a bit antagonistic. The ACA is currently making use of high copays for that reason and more. It also hopes to force more transparency as well as most people want more than a icd-10 code when they have to write a check for $4k.
That's a valid point. I've updated it to be less flippant. Appreciate you bringing that to my attention as there is a lot of great discussion going on in this thread.
There are a wide variety of routine (STD tests, birth control pills) and completely predictable (pregnancy) services where the ACA explicitly prohibits copays.
I've been told Singapore's forced savings + cat coverage plans are reasonably close to this, however. Hardly surprising given how well Singapore tends to govern.
But your broader point (or perhaps my steelman of it) that high copays are not incompatible with socialized medicine is absolutely correct.
