A shittier service at a higher profit margin, this is what rationalising causes. The economic model serves the vendor/supplier and screws the customer. If you can save 20% of costs, and lose 5% on service then you’ll very likely go for it. The customer has no choice because it is not their choice to make.

I am in dispute with a carrier over a package that I bought online which never arrived, and I am getting nowhere in getting either my package, or my money back. I fear it may be a lost cause, and because I cannot get either the vendor, nor the courier, nor the platform to take responsibility, I am made powerless. I can’t go the legal route as that would mean spending more than the item is worth to get the money back, which would provide a victory not worth the cost of the battle, and I have no higher authority to engage because the platform has washed it’s hands of the problem. It can do this because there is some small print somewhere where it says it can.

This all got me thinking, is it just a better business model to be shit? Bear with my thinking here and maybe we can get an answer…

Say I start a business, like a courier, and my intention is to deliver to all parts of the country. I must realise that to deliver to the wilds of the Scottish hills, the same parcel that I might dispatch to say Manchester, is going to have the same margin in it, but a higher cost to me. Taking into consideration the externalities, where if other goods are being dropped off at high density areas they of course combine the costs involved in transporting them, and knowing that I have many miles involved in this singular delivery to the wilds, I might get to reckoning that it is simply not worth it. I could consider this to be a Periphery Vs Centre issue, my reaction to that would be to concentrate on the centre where the highest margin is to be gained and discard the periphery, we are after all trying to make a profit here.

To squeeze a profit from a condition where there is none apparent I might look to a mitigating strategy, one where I expended less resource to compensate. That way I could increase the margin by utilising a lower cost resource. I imagine that would take the form of requiring that my assets in those areas just work harder, or use their own resources like their own car or their own time. I may foist an unrealistic set of deadlines on them by giving them 12 hours of actual labour to do in what I have mooted, by false measure, can be done in 8 hours (under perfect conditions maybe). I imagine this might make these assets act to mitigate the difficulties they now face. The firm says delivery is feasible within 8 hours, I cannot make it reality, nobody wants to work 12 hours and get paid for 8, what do I do?

I think everyone makes it shit just to make it possible. My package has not been delivered, my courier marked it as delivered, my vendor marked it as sent, my platform marked it as not their problem, the only person who is bothered is me. Will I complain? Yes. Can I actually do anything about this? No. I will spend the next few weeks getting frustrated over AI generated chat-bot responses to my questions where they repeat the same nonsense about checking with neighbours and promising to look into the matter until the day I give up and sink the cost. Will I refuse to use that courier again? I would, but it’s not my choice to make, I won’t know if the person I am buying from is using them until the item is bought. Will they change? No, they are getting the delivery cheaper than from others. Will the company continue to operate? Yes, because they deliver just enough to keep the sellers happy and most of the customers do get their items.

This is the new model, and it sucks!

Can we apply this, or see it anywhere else? Yes I think so, it’s everywhere. No longer does a good service matter, everything is just good enough to keep making profits, but also shit, yet not quite shit enough to go under. It is shit to park and use yet another app, it’s better for the vendor because technology cost less than human time. It’s shit to have to submit your own meter readings, to print your own labels, to pump your own diesel makes your hands smell for the rest of the day, and that sucks also. Checking in at the hotel on a machine and ordering a meal and a drink with the app you had to get with a QR code is truly one of the worst experiences I have had recently. It’s shit to be a multi skilled worker, or to sign a contract that says “all other duties commensurate with the role” because that just means anything they fancy asking you to do.

There seems to be a higher margin in being shit, so just be shit.

Paul S Wilson