People complain when you're a robot, people complain when you're a human.
> It's made worse by people thinking that anything about the content of the apology matters. It was literally crafted by an expert actor.
Yes they are a money making organization...that's why they were able to build such a useful service in the first place and yes they paid people to write this letter... who happen to be people that are good at communicating. Does that mean we should question every action they make as insincere because they are self-interested?
Most free/open-source projects are so over-burdened with work/bug reports that they neglect PR pieces like this as they simply don't have the time. It's a good thing it was written by an expert writer IMO, even if it does contain a bit of spin people typically have enough common-sense to know the difference where it matters.
The whole reason they rolled back this change is because they were ultimately self-interested... the customers were very unhappy about it and protested, which may hurt their business, so they rolled it back. It's win-win for everyone. They aren't forcing anyone to use the service, people use it because it's useful and the company gets rewarded for not pissing them off.
Not to mention there is a real action/behaviour behind this letter... it's not just PR-speak sidestepping an issue, as we've seen in the past. It's an announcement that they made a mistake and listened to consumer feedback and are reversing a bad decision.
I find many of these types of complaints (see: every FB group made after changes made to FB) are just people looking for something to whine about, or to feel superior to a company, and they typically aren't representing the average consumer. Most messaging like this is considering the interests of the average/majority customer. Not the cynical/high iq minority who is touchy about copywriting in press releases.
>Yes they are a money making organization...that's why they were able to build such a useful service in the first place and yes they paid people to write this letter... who happen to be people that are good at communicating. Does that mean we should question every action they make as insincere because they are self-interested?
Yes! As customers in a cold, realist world, we're doomed to have an adversarial relationship with the organizations trying to profit from us. The question is who wins: Joe Six-pack like you and me, or the suits with the lawyers and PR teams?
> The question is who wins: Joe Six-pack like you and me, or the suits with the lawyers and PR teams?
... who wins what? The most value which the company provides?
Apologies if I missed some sarcasm here, it’s hard to tell these days.
I’m curious what customers are potentially losing or being ‘manipulated’ here ... because a company wrote a human personal-style press release.
We’re not talking about the special advantages large companies or wealthy individuals get as a result of government policy or in the court room... where politicians and law makers can be bought off or influenced in in their favour, over competitors or consumer interests.
And if customers occasionally reacting negatively, in regards to a service they clearly care about enough to protect and protest to making a change, is ‘adversarial’ then you’re engaging in your own spin. This seems like a healthy give and take. The fundamental basis on which our society is built.
I disagree. The company needs to restore trust. An incorrect way to restore trust is to babble word-salad about feelings that don't exist in whatever business unit made this decision. A correct way to restore trust is to 1. rollback the decision (check) and 2. articulate and implement a plan of action so that it doesn't happen again (missing, and more important).
Trust is immensely valuable. They lost a trust fortune over night. No amount of posturing or PR babble can fix that, and accepting PR babble as trust currency is deeply misguided when dealing with a corporation. A good-faith plan of action is something we can put some stock in.
> 2. articulate and implement a plan of action so that it doesn't happen again.
It seems to me like they did? The plan of action is articulated here:
"we’re going to fix them in a different way, and we’re going to work with you to come up with the specifics, as we should have done the first time around."
And it is implemented here:
"If you haven’t sent us a note yet, or if you don’t see your concerns listed above, please leave us your feedback here[LINK]."
(And of course part of the implementation is actually listening to the feedback in the future.)
I understand that you don't find this satisfactory. However, I don't know what you would find satisfactory. What would a response that legitimately addressed #2 look like, concretely? Could someone give an example response?
EDIT: Ah, you say elsewhere that the people involved in the decision should be "replaced, retrained, or otherwise required to alter their behavior". Do you want Patreon's press release to say, e.g., that people were fired/demoted/retrained as a result of the decision? If so, you should have said so!
> It's made worse by people thinking that anything about the content of the apology matters. It was literally crafted by an expert actor.
Yes they are a money making organization...that's why they were able to build such a useful service in the first place and yes they paid people to write this letter... who happen to be people that are good at communicating. Does that mean we should question every action they make as insincere because they are self-interested?
Most free/open-source projects are so over-burdened with work/bug reports that they neglect PR pieces like this as they simply don't have the time. It's a good thing it was written by an expert writer IMO, even if it does contain a bit of spin people typically have enough common-sense to know the difference where it matters.
The whole reason they rolled back this change is because they were ultimately self-interested... the customers were very unhappy about it and protested, which may hurt their business, so they rolled it back. It's win-win for everyone. They aren't forcing anyone to use the service, people use it because it's useful and the company gets rewarded for not pissing them off.
Not to mention there is a real action/behaviour behind this letter... it's not just PR-speak sidestepping an issue, as we've seen in the past. It's an announcement that they made a mistake and listened to consumer feedback and are reversing a bad decision.
I find many of these types of complaints (see: every FB group made after changes made to FB) are just people looking for something to whine about, or to feel superior to a company, and they typically aren't representing the average consumer. Most messaging like this is considering the interests of the average/majority customer. Not the cynical/high iq minority who is touchy about copywriting in press releases.