[Peleus]

> I remember vividly opening the door to the pig pen, and it was just a sea of people, 95% just responding to very basic customer queries/doing incredibly basic computation work and costing huge amounts of money...because, of course, there is no cost pressure from "customers"...a parallel that more people understand is US healthcare admin, huge inefficiencies, pension admin is like that

How does blockchain solve this?

There are always people pushing generalized "it will be good for this" statements, yet they can never seem to give concrete examples of where blockchain would be a better solution than the current implementation.

[skippyboxedhero]

Because all of the operations that these people perform can be performed computationally (and the reason why they aren't now is not necessarily technological, all the technology exists to do this today but blockchain forces everyone to change all at once).

It is already happening.

[kelseyfrog]

Blockchain solves it by making it so that all that goes away. In return if something fucks it up...well look at every crypto project that has ever crashed. I'm not being glib. That's the solution.

[Peleus]

so that all that goes away

All WHAT goes away? You're talking about hordes of people answering customer queries. How the hell does blockchain make that go away?

[aaaaaaaaata]

Eliminate customer service touch points from your business.

[msbarnett]

How on earth do you imagine a blockchain makes customer support go away?

[skippyboxedhero]

This is why you don't understand...the "customer" for pensions/fund managers is not the end-user, it is financial intermediaries (in most countries anyway, the level of disintermediation varies, some do market themselves to individuals i.e. Vanguard but most do not, the commission does not go to the customer).

All of the technology to do away with this exists now and existed before blockchain. But most of these companies haven't implemented because they aren't native tech companies (I don't think people understand on here, these places don't have any software engineers, they hire consultants, their idea of a "tech guy" is the guy who sorts out the Microsoft licences) and the cost saving is only realised if everyone adopts it.

With blockchain, it allows you to decentralise a whole set of computational logic that was previously performed by hand, and you change how people interact with that.

It all seems totally puzzling...because most people assume that these businesses are already using technology, when they aren't. Blockchain incentivizes business transformation across the supply chain, which allows you to remove cost from almost every level.

The question of actual customer support is not going away, it will never go away. That is what financial advisers are for, they are actual customer support.

Classic HN though, a bunch of people who don't work in an industry pontificating about how that industry works...genius.

[kelseyfrog]

There's nothing to support. The block chains immutability means no takebacks. The phone line can just have a message on repeat "Sorry, nothing can be done. The Blockchain is the source of truth." Customers can then just hang up knowing that it's the real world that is wrong and not a thing on chain. This is blockchain realism at its finest.

[Peleus]

Fucking lol. I can just imagine a company sending a package to the wrong address. The customer rings the company to ask what's going on. "Sorry the blockchain is immutable, we can't change where your package is going, deal with it".

Yes, blockchain totally solves all these problems...

I worry if people are actually this delusional.

[heavenlyblue]

> I worry if people are actually this delusional.

Would it make you worry more or less if they are not delusional but just plainly not thinking?

[throwaway0a5e]

I don't care whether they're thinking. I care whether they're voting.