Modern business practices that you hate

[Saucycarpdog]

The title basically explains it

I'm sure everyone here hates many gaming business practices that are being exploited today(cough* Microtransactions *cough) but I'd like to hear more opinions outside of gaming.

 

[Barbas]

Pushing prices up to almost double, then cutting them in half and pretending there's an incredible sale offer on. As if that tacky-looking sofa would cost more than a vacation. Barf.

 

[dyre]

I find that labor exploitation offends my sensibilities; shirts that weren't sown in a sweat shop just feel better, you know? Or maybe it's the cotton-polyester ratio.

But seriously, labor exploitation is one of the few business practices that come close to "moral outrage" button. Other things, like evading taxes, laundering money for drug dealers, destroying the environment, cheating the consumer, etc, offend me in an abstract way, but it's reading about families in which the older siblings have to drop out of school to supplement the parents' income so that the youngest kid can afford a basic education that actually upsets me, especially when they all work for some large global firm (or supplier thereof) that could absolutely afford to pay a little more to make a lot of people's lives so much better.

 

[Esotera]

Offering products as services. When it's done well the result is awesome services like Netflix & Steam, but a lot of the time it will probably just end up as a steaming turd (Photoshop comes to mind)

 

[Jacco]

I recently got something in the mail that looked like an official government correspondence (jury summons/ticket/etc). It was sealed on four sides and had perforated edges you had to tear for privacy and everything. On the front was "SECOND CONTACT ATTEMPT- OPEN IMMEDIATELY" in all caps, bolded, everything. Panicking, I ripped it open in the car, thinking I missed something important.

What was it, you ask?

a motherfucking advertisement for motherfucking car insurance.

I about hit the fucking roof.

So there's your answer. Invasive, dishonest advertisements.

I have no problem with advertising and marketing. How would we know about half the stuff we do if it didn't exist? But when you start being irrisponsible and invasive like that (or on websites with pop-up windows or auto-playing videos, for example, then we have a fuckin' problem.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Not being able to go shopping, or just buy a soda pop, without having to answer twenty questions at the checkout.

"Have you heard about our (insert store special card here)."
"Yes/No."
"Would you like to sign up for it? You (insert bonus feature here)."
"No thanks."
"Are you sure? You get such-and-such, and it only takes a few minutes to sign up."

Can I please just make my purchase now? I don't need to save five percent on a 1.50 purchase. Were cashiers always this pushy and I just never noticed when I was kid, or has it gotten worse?

 

[Timotei]

Games and their emphasis on Day-1-DLC, "early access" games from lazy studios too lazy to release a full title, and exaggerated marketing in order to entice eager fans to preorder. I largely attribute this to the decline in games lately and possibly be the prime suspect in the impending second death of the gaming industry. Last year we saw this with a myriad of major titles like Rome II, Battlefield 4, Sim City, XRebirth and Arma III just to name a few. Games like these were shoved out onto shelves and digital store servers by greedy distributors with a full price in clearly unfinished forms. Fans and passive consumers alike were told to hang onto their purchase in hopes the problems could be patched out over time to a playable level before the studio is forced to abandon their support for it in order to work on another half-finished title.

These practices are done so distributors like EA, Sony, and Ubisoft can get net more of a profit from consumers who have been hyped up by fake trailers, astroturf previews and enthusiasm for the series. Because once they have a preorder, they don't care what state the game is in or how many negative review scores it receives upon release because they already have your fucking money!

 

[Queen Michael]

Extra charges that are completely baloney.

Like when I reserve movie tickets online and there's a "reservation fee." Riiiiiight. I'm sure that letting me do all the work is way expensive. Just be honest and call it a "because we can-fee."

 

[tippy2k2]

a motherfucking advertisement for motherfucking car insurance.

I'm absolutely surprised that this shit's still legal (or hell, maybe it is illegal but they don't care).

I received something very similar except that it was from a student loan program. Official documents, "privacy" envelope, "open immediately", "service required"; everything was designed on it to look like I had royally fucked something up in my student loan.

...it's an ad for a consolidation program. An ad that was designed with the sole intention to fool me into consolidating my student loans into their program. I read through it before I took action; I could easily see a panicked person contacting this company before they realized it was an ad. It was designed to look like something had gone very wrong with my student loans and the only way to avoid a mess of legal/financial problems would be to go with them.

OT: This is more of a "first-world problems" kind of complaint but I'm going with it because I do what I want!

Cable package services are a freaking joke.

For one, many places only give you one option for your internet/cable provider. If said provider wishes it, they can completely and royally F you with charging whatever they want without having to do anything to get their services up to a decent standard.

Along with that, if I want to get NFL Red Zone (Football!!!) or HBO (for Game of Thrones), I HAVE to have cable. I love you Game of Thrones but you've gotta be joking with me when you tell me that I have to get cable ($40 a month or so) just for the privilege of then paying you (another $20 or so) so that I can watch the one show I want to watch. Want HBO Go only so that you can stream the one show you want without cable? Well fuck you because that's not how it works. I know the GoT guy says he doesn't mind piracy but if anyone down there wonders why their shows get pirated so much, I can give you a hint...

 

[teqrevisited]

The general lack of communication.

"We'll let you know."
"We'll get back to you."
"Yes, we'll notify X department so that you can avoid X."

No. No you fucking wont. You never do.

I don't waste time getting properly angry about it but if I'm ever unfortunate enough to encounter the companies that I've marked for death again they will find out exactly why I want nothing to do with them.

 

[Duck Sandwich]

I recently got something in the mail that looked like an official government correspondence (jury summons/ticket/etc). It was sealed on four sides and had perforated edges you had to tear for privacy and everything. On the front was "SECOND CONTACT ATTEMPT- OPEN IMMEDIATELY" in all caps, bolded, everything. Panicking, I ripped it open in the car, thinking I missed something important.

What was it, you ask?

a motherfucking advertisement for motherfucking car insurance.

Wow. This just takes the cake. Whoever came up with that idea deserves to be punched in the face. As for what grinds my gears, I hate when my dumb fucking bank has some poor shmuck call me with "Hello, this is your bank calling to sell you some bullshit insurance so we can slowly suck money out of your account, but first, we'd like to waste 5 minutes of your time with bullshit flattery about how hard you work for your money and ask you vapid questions like how important financial security is to you."

I kind of feel bad for the schmuck whose job it is to drone through those same fucking lines over and over again as they run through their list of phone numbers to call. I can tell by how bored out of their mind they sound when they say "You are a very valued customer and I'd like to thank you for your contribution."

 

[Dalisclock]

Business's that treat their employees like crap instead of, you know, people. Treating time off and sick leave like it's a crime(particularly if people are getting sick because they're being overworked).


On the converse, businesses that make massive profits that whine and cry and scream at the very idea of raising the minimum wage(when most of their workers are on minimum wage) or having to cover more of their employees under overtime laws. Often the same executives who get golden parachutes instead of getting fired when they screw up.

 

[sXeth]

Not including tax up front in your prices. While I don't miss Australian prices on stuff from my time there, my god it was nice not to have the price shoot up 15% at the till and less of a mental hassle keeping a tally of things.

The seemingly ever-growing trend of having perpetual massive sales, but having ridiculous starting markups too. Theres a furniture place next to my work that never has less then 30% off, and often has 70-80% off sales, but an end table is like 300 bucks sticker price there, making the whole thing ridiculous.

Every other place having their own version of a credit card, and you absolutely must have theirs to get any benefits is one too. I barely use my one regular credit card, nevermind having a separate one for my grocery store, amazon, two department stores, etc.

 

[ThatQuietGuy]

Internet advertisements, a bit petty perhaps but they just seem to keep outdoing themsleves with how much obtrusive they can be.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

So far, this has only happened three times that I'm aware of but there are some games that are given limited releases. These examples (and I could be wrong about two of them but anyway) would be the Metroid Prime Trilogy, Kirby's Return to Dreamland and, Xenoblade Chronicles. These are games that were difficult to find when they were new but after a few months, Gamestop had an anomalous number of used copies of these. Kirby is admittedly lower on the price range but the Metroid Trilogy, Metroid Prime 3 in general and, especially Xenoblade Chronicles were suddenly showing up used for far more than what the games initially cost new.

Another thing that really grinds my gears is how it seems like more and more items aren't being built to last. My current car is a 95 Escort and while I could definitely use something new, I can still manage driving it. Whereas there are four people in my family who just got new cars when the last time they got a new/newish car was back in the mid/early 2000's. Other large appliances don't seem to want to last more than a few years either which just seems like bullcrap.

The general lack of communication.

"We'll let you know."
"We'll get back to you."
"Yes, we'll notify X department so that you can avoid X."

No. No you fucking wont. You never do.

I don't waste time getting properly angry about it but if I'm ever unfortunate enough to encounter the companies that I've marked for death again they will find out exactly why I want nothing to do with them.

The worst part is, when you try getting into contact with person Y after talking to department X you either get taken directly to voice mail or, redirected back to the first person you were talking to to begin with.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I recently got something in the mail that looked like an official government correspondence (jury summons/ticket/etc). It was sealed on four sides and had perforated edges you had to tear for privacy and everything. On the front was "SECOND CONTACT ATTEMPT- OPEN IMMEDIATELY" in all caps, bolded, everything. Panicking, I ripped it open in the car, thinking I missed something important.

What was it, you ask?

a motherfucking advertisement for motherfucking car insurance.

Oh, yeah, that's bad. I suppose they could keep them looking officialish, but not actually copy official stuff to get around any laws for that.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Marketing execs and other higher up positions (CEO's, etc) running companies when they don't have any practical knowledge of said industry they're in. You can see this in a lot of gaming publishers, like Big Huge Games, they're being run by folk who've no real idea of the technology they are promoting which is why we see so many stupid decisions that show their lack of experience or knowledge of the field.
I have a personal example, working in Web Design back in the early 2000's my bosses were all lawyers and MBA's who didn't know jack fucking shit about web design. They'd see buzzwords on TV like "Javascript", come into my office and tell me we need Javascript and when I queried about what exactly they wanted to do with it I'd get a blank fucking stare and a follow up of "I don't care just put javascript on our website".
I feel that if you are going to run a company, you should have at least a practical knowledge of the technology you're selling and if you don't, talk to the grunts so you can get a better understanding of what you want.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

Not being able to go shopping, or just buy a soda pop, without having to answer twenty questions at the checkout.

"Have you heard about our (insert store special card here)."
"Yes/No."
"Would you like to sign up for it? You (insert bonus feature here)."
"No thanks."
"Are you sure? You get such-and-such, and it only takes a few minutes to sign up."

Can I please just make my purchase now? I don't need to save five percent on a 1.50 purchase. Were cashiers always this pushy and I just never noticed when I was kid, or has it gotten worse?

I used to work in a retail company and I think it is a more relatively new practice to badger to customers to such a level as they do now. At least it is drilled in more to practice than it used to be and every shop is getting its own loyalty card etc.

The sales assistants in our stores were graded/rated on their performance and a major player in this was the selling they did at the till. The extras that they pinned on to someone who was already purchasing something. Kind of like a commission basis, but they were awarded points which they could spend in our store for getting these additional sales, rather than a monetary bonus.

On top of this, if they were seen 'not' to ask, then they were called up on it and it became an issue.

Trust me, they probably hate asking a lot more than you hate listening to it, but it's one of those things expected of them.

It is definitely an annoyance for both parties involved though.

I tend to head towards self-service tills if I can and attempt to have as little human interaction as possible. What a wonderful person I am. But these machines are hardly ever used without issue, at least for me.

 

[Zontar]

Selling an unfinished product at full price or, for extra audacity, more then the finished produce. I'm looking at you Planetary Annihilators