[HN Gopher] Ghost CEO lectures locked out customer about empathy
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       Ghost CEO lectures locked out customer about empathy
        
       Author : mkishi
       Score  : 77 points
       Date   : 2021-10-16 21:51 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | rahimnathwani wrote:
       | After reading the initial Tweets, and then the email exchange, I
       | can empathise with both sides.
        
       | hogFeast wrote:
       | The best part is saying that you have learned so much about why
       | you shouldn't be mean to companies on Twitter, and how
       | embarrassing that behaviour is...and doing it in a whiny email to
       | a customer.
       | 
       | Some people go through life "learning" the same lesson over and
       | over.
        
       | jonas21 wrote:
       | Honestly, both sides of this conversation seem pretty obnoxious.
        
         | throwawybllion wrote:
         | This
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | nostrebored wrote:
       | Horrific CX. I'm sure if Ghost discovered a bug causing data loss
       | it would become an engineering priority.
       | 
       | From a customer's perspective this is the same thing. This shows
       | a complete lack of empathy with what customers feel when they use
       | your platform.
       | 
       | Stories like these stick with me. When I evaluate using a product
       | hearing about customer pain like this makes it a no go. Similarly
       | I've told friends that I wouldn't work for a company they've
       | applied to based on bad c-level engagement with customers.
       | 
       | Stuff like this spreads. If you won't fix it for your customers
       | sake, fix it out of self interest.
        
       | encoderer wrote:
       | Are we using HN to amplify Twitter flame wars? Submitting
       | negative stories of people we don't like?
       | 
       | This is not news it's just red meat for clicks.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | throwawybllion wrote:
       | Seems like the CEO told OP that they would provide her an archive
       | download link upon request. I'm confused what the problem is? I
       | buy that the trial lockout thing is annoying, but... Are we
       | supposed to be up in arms that a user has to email support for...
       | support?
       | 
       | I'm annoyed primarily by OP's entitlement and vitriol, and
       | secondarily by the CEO's typos and grammar.
        
         | throwawybllion wrote:
         | Also OP claimed that she never mistreated support staff and
         | then posted emails of her being extremely rude and
         | condescending to support staff.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | ivanmontillam wrote:
       | I reckon some of the powerful distribution that can give you a
       | centralized platform like Ghost, Medium, Substack or similar. But
       | the long-term solution is to own your website.
       | 
       | At the very start the reach is not very enticing... but your
       | home, your rules. (As long as you don't break the law, you'll be
       | fine).
        
       | ng12 wrote:
       | Twitter has become so annoying. I can't even see what @ghost is
       | without signing in.
        
         | jhot wrote:
         | I use the Privacy Redirect [1] extension to redirect Twitter to
         | nitter [2] which is a much better experience for someone
         | without an account.
         | 
         | 1 https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect 2
         | https://nitter.net/
        
         | riffic wrote:
         | Twitter's had a login wall for a few weeks now. The company is
         | pretty user-hostile.
         | 
         | edit: There were some threads on this in the past that are
         | worth checking out. Public service announcements like fire
         | notifications are pushed out by public agencies through these
         | services and they can't go to the intended audience when put
         | behind the wall. Public sector really needs to be compelled to
         | adopt interoperable and freely consumable protocols.
         | 
         | https://www.google.com/search?q=twitter+login+wall+site:news...
        
           | fumar wrote:
           | It can't monetize as effectively without users logged in.
        
           | rileymat2 wrote:
           | Instagram/facebook have locked up public intended content
           | behind login as well.
        
         | rileymat2 wrote:
         | I understand why, but a lot of social media has gone this
         | direction. It feels like a bit of a bait and switch over time.
         | 
         | The deal was we give them free content for eyeballs to serve
         | ads and they give us a platform for exposure. Requiring login
         | as well is a long trend I don't like.
        
         | quickthrower2 wrote:
         | Ironically I couldn't see Amy's tweet when signed in I had to
         | sign out!
         | 
         | " You're unable to view this Tweet because this account owner
         | limits who can view their Tweets. "
         | 
         | Limited to friends and completely anonymous people I guess!
        
           | claviska wrote:
           | I respectfully asked a question about something she blogged
           | about years ago and she blocked me. It was rather bizarre.
           | Perhaps you met a similar fate at one time.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | kragen wrote:
           | Yeah, she has me blocked too, because I called her out about
           | some racist stuff she posted against Chinese people. I guess
           | she's kind of an asshole. (I'm speaking here as a recognized
           | expert in the field.)
        
           | ahoyhere wrote:
           | You must be blocked... either for a reason, or part of a
           | block list or I blocked you accidentally when blocking ads
           | which has happened a few times. What's your username?
        
       | torstenvl wrote:
       | That checks. Ghost CEO launched massive e-mail flame at me when I
       | asked them to clarify their migration policy (it used to say you
       | could "request" your data but gave no indication as to whether
       | they honor such requests). Dude is outright abusive.
        
         | zexodus wrote:
         | I wonder how they'd respond to a GDPR request.
        
         | officialchicken wrote:
         | Same experience here with the CTO... I was trying to notify
         | some terrible security problems in their product. What she
         | doesn't like she dismisses, deflects, and deletes. _edit - it
         | was the CTO, not CEO_
        
       | Jugurtha wrote:
       | I often test our product by recording a speedrun video of the
       | main functionality, not to be shared, but to reveal all the
       | learned helplessness and clunky user experience.
       | 
       | It is amazing how recording a video going through the product
       | does: the video is full of swear words and cursing. All the
       | things that were invisible suddenly become glaring. All the un-
       | necessary clicking and convoluted flows become torture with
       | cognitive dissonance: "And you can easily just do [steps that
       | clearly are not easy]" and it hits you. Hard.
       | 
       | Hence, some things trigger that agression, especially in a more
       | mature product. For example, I only used YouTube as a consumer of
       | videos, but recently I was putting a lot of videos there in my
       | personal account.
       | 
       | I then created another account and wanted to transfer the videos.
       | Easy, right? No. I looked and looked, and read documentation, and
       | searched on the web, and people said you need to download the
       | videos from one account, then upload them back again to the
       | second account. That can't be, right? I mean I clearly am not the
       | first one to want to do that, and YouTube has existed for ages.
       | There _has_ to be a way I 'm stupid enough to have overlooked. I
       | contact them on Twitter, and they link to the documentation that
       | tells you to download videos somewhere, then upload them back
       | again. This is insanity. They're already on YouTube's infra, why
       | do the round trip. Just move the darn thing? I'm not privy to how
       | their infrastructure works, but I have a feeling that this is not
       | the flow I want.
       | 
       | One other example... I have one Android phone that was not
       | physically in the same place as me. I wanted to get the call
       | history (which is backed up in Drive) to urgently call the last
       | number that called me. I could clearly see that the call history
       | was backed up in Drive, and it shows you a "Preview" button that,
       | when you click on, shows a modal that tells you the call history
       | is backed up, and has a button that says "Delete".
       | 
       | I can use Find my Phone and pin-point the location, I can erase
       | it, I can make it ring, I can download all my data and Drive. I
       | can download the device _settings_. I can Delete a backup, but
       | not download it.
       | 
       | Now I need to wait for tomorrow to be able to get that phone for
       | that call log.
       | 
       | Here's what is interesting: it's almost impossible that I be the
       | first one that hits something like this (either for YouTube or
       | Drive) for products with this many users existing for this long.
       | Moving a video around is practically so obvious, you don't think
       | there would be a documentation for it, let alone a documentation
       | that tells you you can't do it. Heck I'll run my mouth and say
       | it's harder to write and maintain the docs that tell you you
       | can't do it, than add that no-brainer functionality... But then
       | again, I'm running my mouth.
        
         | adamvalve wrote:
         | The YouTube issue you describe could be on purpose to limit
         | abuse/gaming of the system. Since we don't deal in YouTube's
         | moderation day to day we aren't privy to the reasoning that
         | feature was never developed. Maybe they did it early on and
         | realized before they released it could be abused to make copies
         | of your YouTube channel with slightly different language
         | optimized for different search terms. Hard to say intent
         | without working on it day to day. Sometimes things are hard on
         | purpose because a small part of the population suck and will
         | abuse a feature.
        
           | Jugurtha wrote:
           | Yes, that was my point. I know that the current flow is not
           | what I want, but I understand there obviously are reasons I'm
           | not privy to, but then again it looks obvious to me from the
           | outside.... but then again I'm not aware of all the reasons
           | they've done it like that.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence
           | 
           | The fact there exist reasons something sucks does not make it
           | suck less for the user, even taking into account the user's
           | awareness of these reasons' existence.
           | 
           | It's the "Of course, but maybe...":
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLGzFQg_1xc
        
       | 1cvmask wrote:
       | Ghost ghosted their trial customer. Perhaps the reason of the
       | name
        
       | hartator wrote:
       | From Ghost CEO's email:
       | 
       | > Years ago, when l was younger and knew better, used to be very
       | aggressive to companies on Twitter and lecture them about how
       | they should do business. It was awful, honestly, and I regret how
       | I behaved.
       | 
       | Even ignoring the obvious typo, it is a little condescending
       | indeed.
        
         | dilatedmind wrote:
         | I think he's making fun of his past self, thinking he knew
         | everything when he was younger.
        
           | smoldesu wrote:
           | When I was young and foolish, I also used to defend random
           | CEOs on Hacker News. But now I'm older, and rationalizing
           | their absurd and offensive rhetoric is too time consuming for
           | my desired lifestyle.
        
         | ahoyhere wrote:
         | especially considering I've been running a SaaS for 12 years
        
           | 1cvmask wrote:
           | Congratulations. What is your SaaS of 12 years called?
           | 
           | And in your HN bio some of the url domains do not work. FYI.
           | 
           | You also state that you can get angry (and bored). Would you
           | still have publicized this if you were merely annoyed but not
           | so angry.
        
       | kleinsch wrote:
       | If the Ghost CEO really knew better about Twitter they'd
       | recognize that this person is flaming for attention, not trying
       | to get their problem resolved, so sending condescending emails is
       | just throwing fuel on the fire.
        
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       (page generated 2021-10-16 23:01 UTC)