[Tarq0n]

Labour was cheaper back then. Even valuable jobs can stop making sense if the costs outweigh them. That's the difficulty with automation making other sectors more efficient, wages get driven up while your productivity stays the same.

[Gravityloss]

It still seems to me designing applications or web services is so hard that it's just easier to hire thousands of people to do customer service and having people to come physically to do things. The average corporation's business application or web page is absolutely terrible and a lot of non-technical users simply can not do business with it. Ie it is a hindrance for the businesses core reason of existence. Do the QR code things show up in revenue tracking? Do they do A/B testing? I think I prefer to choose another restaurant if I see that, or not come again.

I think some small pizza shops have had proper simple web pages, probably because it's do-or-die for them and the person contracting the web page is the person also knowing very well how the business is doing. Also phone interactions are very fast and straightforward. It's sad to see them having to struggle with terrible card payment terminals and everybody trying to take a cut (credit card and delivery companies).

[Telaneo]

> It still seems to me designing applications or web services is so hard that it's just easier to hire thousands of people to do customer service and having people to come physically to do things.

I'd love for this to be true, but every business nowadays sees employees (except maybe whatever group is core to their business) as a giant cost centre. Every employee cut is money saved. Hence customer service consistently being shit, since it's an easy place to skimp on. Now, the doorman's fallacy could be applicable here; good customer service will create repeat buyers and good word of mouth, but I doubt you need to put that many people into it to make it good. Thousands has to be well past diminishing returns. Even if only 20% of people find the happy path in some stupid web app, that's potentially thousands of man-hours that customer service didn't have to provide, and thus a lot less employees you don't really need.

[benj111]

True. But automation also pushes up wealth. Starbucks drivethrus aren't a thing because we need iced sweet nominally coffee stuff. It exists because we have the disposable income to pay someone else to make the coffee.

Yes a doorman is a cost, and a greater cost than previously, but we've also got more money to waste on such fripperies.

[philipallstar]

> That's the difficulty with automation making other sectors more efficient, wages get driven up while your productivity stays the same.

The root cause of that is minimum wage - if you raise it then automation becomes important, and where you can't automate it drives up prices of essential goods. So a doorman is either automated away or needs a raise to afford to live.

[Tarq0n]

It's not just minimum wages. If productive sector employees' demand for goods causes inflation, prices will rise. If you want to keep your nurses/doormen/teachers you'll have to increase their wages regardless of what the minimum wage is.

[philipallstar]

> If productive sector employees' demand for goods causes inflation, prices will rise.

I'm not sure what you mean. Prices rising is what we call 'inflation' - one doesn't cause the other. They're the same thing.

[Tarq0n]

Rising demand induces inflation because more money is chasing the same goods.

[philipallstar]

That might just mean more competition is created as there's a bigger market to chase. Minimum wage has the same risk as the one you mentioned, but also all but guarantees higher prices (particularly on labour-intensive goods such as food) as everyone's wage needs to go up to make the harder/worse jobs worth doing.