Value-subtracted services, or, "Let repeat dialing fuck you in the earhole."

The BBQ Pit
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Back in the late 90s, around the time when the Internet was really beginning to perk, there was blather in the air about “value-added services.” Every company with brains would, every which way, start offering little, not necessarily expensive extras. We’d buy them, companies would go rich, and it would be a sweet win-win for everyone.

Oh yes, and there would be “micropayments.” Whatever happened to micropayments?

These services still exist, but in nearly every case they feel like a scam, subtract value from the product by which they are mediated, or both.

“Repeat dialing” is the perfect example. What a fucking abomination. You call someone up and either the line is busy or it rings for a long time. In either case a harpy appears on the line and says in a voice loud enough to be noticeably uncomfortable (seriously, it fucking loud, much louder than the ring tone or any real voice that is likely to appear on the other end), “Let repeat dialing fucking dial this line again and again until someone appears and then we’ll charge you a buck fifty and call you back. Let repeat dialing… let it! Let it!”

I am never going to use this service. Never! But now every time I use a land line phone I’ve got a nice chance of hearing the harpy when I dial. If that isn’t a value-subtraction, I don’t have a fucking clue what is.

And SBC et alia wonder why people don’t bother with land lines (I only have one because my cell reception sucks ass at my house. What a joke.).

Here’s another corporate fantasy: The Value-Added Service Zone. You’re going enter the bricks and morter and they’re going to do all kinds of shit for you.

Kinko’s-FedEx–two brands that taste great together. Why not just elide the thing and call it FuX because, I’ll tell you, if you want to be in Clusterfuck Central, just head on over! I went there once to mail something internationally. The dude had no fucking clue how to do it, had to dick around with the “interface” and finally quoted me something that the post office could do for 1/5 the price (I only bothered with FuX because the post office was closed).

Today I really had to get a document printed, and they have this really stupid system where you have to pay by the minute to hook up to the computer and then pay $0.49 a copy–a value-added service if ever there was one. The DOOOD working there tried to help me out and get this amazing technology to function, but the fucker didn’t work! And what did he say? Oh, this is classic: “Um, yeah, I really don’t work on this stuff that much.”

So much for “value-added” extras–DOOOD don’t do it! The whole concept of Value-Added Land would seem to depend on having highly trained, motivated, and intelligent employees explaining and selling the hell out of everything in the store, but I’ve seen no evidence that FuX recruits anyone but Wal*Mart rejects.

Hey, the guy was dumb but nice enough, tho’: He gave me a CD-ROM to burn the file on from my Mac–but the CD didn’t work. Nor the next one from a new pack. Who knows why.

Let’s keep moving. You can get wireless Internet at Starbucks–but you’ve got to get a “T-Mobile Anally Finger Yourself” account–then you can use it, then you can! Otherwise, you’re just going to get an ad for Starfux on your goddamn laptop screen. SORRY, I’m not going to pay fuckin’ “T-Mobile” (what a brand that is, sounds like a T-shirt that’s mobile or something stupid like that) for what should be free. Hubbard and Craven’s (shouldn’t it just be “Hubbard and Craven”–why the “'s” when so many other stores are dropping it and “classic”-sounding browns like Crabtree and Evelyn and Casswell and Massey never used it in the first place–stupid fuckers) makes you register or something. Listen, fuckers, you just open up a wireless network–that’s it! No special software or registrations or anything else required.

BTW, whenever I have to register for any site, I always give them the most fucked-up information possible. Yeah, my name’s Joe Blow, I’m a female born in 1900, and I live on Gofuckyourself Avenue. Yeah, go data-mine that, fuckers!

Anyhow, I’m sure you’ll have your own tales of value subtraction. Just try not to be as pissed off about everything as I am, k?

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Whoops! I meant this for the Pit. Can you help me, O mods?

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Sorry. Thread-moving on request is a value-added service.

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That will be $0.008, sir, for one moved thread and one mod-implemented Instafine.

Micropayments are awesome.:smiley:

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Yep. Seriously, have you ever considered the value of a really good encyclopedia?

Moved from GD to the Pit.

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World Book?!

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Go Funk yourself, Wagnall-boy. :wink:

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Hey, if you want free WiFi, take the two seconds to Google free sites in your area. Starbucks/T-Mobile is a joint venture by two for-profit companies, and if you have T-Mobile as your wireless carrier you can get the unlimited internet (WiFi and GPRS/Edge) for thirty bucks a month. If it pisses you off that the Starbucks isn’t a free hotspot, go patronize a local coffeeshop that is, sheesh. Personally, I think it’s worth thirty bucks a month for those who travel to be able to find a good hotspot wherever they happen to be, and T-Mobile covers about six thousand spots nationwide. It’s either instant convenience OR free, your choice–but don’t get pissy because you don’t like the choice you’ve made.

And by the way, those Starbucks hot spots are the shit–I can find a Starbucks faster by wardriving with my laptop than by spotting the signs. I use them to calibrate my WiFi card because the APs are detectible a block away.

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In Georgia, the Krystal Burger locations included a WiFi hotspot that was free and didn’t show advertising or anything.

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Here’s another one. The copy center at Office Max will copy stuff for you for 7c a side. OK.

Recently, I thought I’d get a color flyer copier printed by them, 2-sided. Their price was $0.89 a side.

The whole point of having them do it was to avoid having to buy printer ink. But I could print out a hundred for less than $89.00 worth of printer ink!

Even at the convenience store in Japan (by no means a major copy center), a color copy was just ¥100.

For that matter, I could get the flyer professionally printed for about the same price–on nice paper. Fuckin’ unreal. I’m sure that the only time “Copy Max” does color copies is for the occassional person who just happens to need a color copy… just one.

Another value-added service changing the way we do business–not!

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Whoops, I was wrong. For 100 2-sided copies (just a small stack, really), that would have been 178 fucking dollars. WTF!

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Heh. I don’t think I’ve ever filled out a form on a web site and listed my age as anything under 90. I don’t get any added value from the New York Times/Yahoo/whatever knowing my real name, so why bother?

Presumably countless others feel the same way and do the same thing, so I wonder if there really are marketing departments out there scratching their heads over the apparently vast number of Internet-savvy users in the 90-105 age range. :smiley:

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No joke. When are they going to get wise to the fact that all their information belong to us?

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How is this value subtracted? You have to buy a color printer for that to work, and it’d have to be a pretty expensive one to look as nice as the color copies.

You can drive somewhere for less gas money than it would cost to take a taxi, if you have a car. Does that make taxis a value subtracted service?

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It’s not value-subtracted, just a huge rip. And I highly doubt that they’re pricing it so that they are maximizing profit. They are essentially pricing it so that no one will use unless they have an accute need. Anyone planning to print large quantities would not pay that price; they’d go to a pro printer and get it done at a fraction of the cost.