6 ms·

Yep. On the other side of the curtain this often isn't nefarious. It's a simple cost/benefit analysis of spending time on something that one user is complaining

Yep. On the other side of the curtain this often isn't nefarious. It's a simple cost/benefit analysis of spending time on something that one user is complaining about versus a backlog of higher business priorities. I've seen this in my work and it makes me sad for the user, but it often does take a bit of effort to spear these bug reports through.

falcor84 6mo ago
It's a false dichotomy - something being "a simple cost/benefit analysis" doesn't remove the ethical dimension, and can absolutely be nefarious. A movie villain saying "it was just business" doesn't make their actions less villainous.
conductr 6mo ago
I’d argue that there should be no higher business priority than shipping a product you already sold. If you sold a product and your customer spends their time documenting exactly why and how you sold them something that’s broken, you should make that a high priority. As a natural progression, you’ll start shipping less buggy / better tested products and that’s how you unlock yourself from the obligation you made to your existing customers to do other work. Not directed at you of course, just the proverbial “you” from the frustration of a purchaser of software.
- FridgeSeal 6mo ago
  Careful saying that too loudly, the “ship new features at all costs” gang will come for your head. They don’t approve of things like “quality software” and “making stuff that works past the demo and cursory inspection” or “actual user utility”.
nradov 6mo ago
I totally understand that from the perspective of individual employees: they have little incentive to do more than the bare minimum to close tickets. But this behavior is typically a symptom of broken corporate culture and failure to align internal metrics. For every customer who takes the trouble to submit a formal bug report there are likely many others who just live with it, and badmouth you to other customers. Doing deep investigations of even minor bug reports also tends to expose other, more serious latent bugs. And root cause analysis allows you to create closed-loop solutions to prevent similar future bugs. Large monopolistic tech companies like Apple and Microsoft can afford to ignore this stuff for years because there are few realistic alternatives. But longer term eventually a disruptive competitor comes along who takes product quality and customer service more seriously.
- beembeem 6mo ago
  Yes and no. Funny you mention Microsoft because I used to see bug reports for Windows. I can tell you there was a ton of low quality "SOMEONE HACKED MY COMPUTER" or similar feedback (and sometimes just unintelligible ranting) that was completely inactionable or unreproducible. I otherwise do agree with your premise that large monopolistic businesses can sit on large swaths of feedback without worrying about competition - and that this is a problem. However, for most software projects and businesses, the lack of repeated feedback is a signal that the issue isn't important. As a user I would hope that the software author/publisher is prioritizing important problems. Closing one ticket is not indicative of organizational rot, as you say.
- SchemaLoad 6mo ago
  There's also going to be mountains of bugs resulting from cosmic rays hitting the computer, defective ram chips, weird modifications of the system the reporter hasn't mentioned. You could sink an infinite amount of time investigating and find nothing. At some point you have to cut off the time investment when only one person has reported it and no devs have been able to reproduce it.
  - ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
    What if no devs even tried to reproduce it, and they have no reason to believe they've fixed the bug with any other changes? That seems to be the case described in the article. In such a situation, I think it's dishonest to ask the reporter to expend even more effort when you've spent zero. Just close it if you don't want to do it, you don't have to be a jerk to your customers, too, by sending them off on a wild goose chase. Otherwise, why not ask the reporter to reproduce the issue every single day until you choose to fix it in some unknown point in the future, and if they miss a day, it gets closed? That seems just as arbitrary.
    - annie511266728 6mo ago
      Right. The problem isn’t closing the ticket, it’s pretending more work is happening than actually is. “Needs verification” is fine if someone has actually tried to reproduce it. Otherwise it’s just a nicer way of saying “we’re not going to look at this.”
godelski 6mo ago
> this often isn't nefarious. It's a simple cost/benefit analysis of spending time on something that one user is complaining about versus a backlog of higher business priorities. You can triage without closing tickets. So it is nefarious. It is metric hacking If you're having trouble reproducing, tag "needs verification" or something else. But closing a ticket isn't triaging, it is sweeping problems under the rug
- olvy0 6mo ago
  Exactly. Thank you for saying this.
nijave 6mo ago
I can sort of back that for desktop apps but telemetry is so trivial for webapps needing a reproducer is almost an embarrassing admission the operator has no clue what they're doing. Error tracking and tracing make it fairly straight forward to retroactively troubleshoot unreproducible issues.
- account42 6mo ago
  And total 24/7 surveillance also makes police work easier, but it's still wrong.
  - nijave 6mo ago
    ...you're claiming error tracking and monitoring are wrong? We're talking about companies you voluntarily have a relationship with, not the government
    - account42 6mo ago
      The telemetry is almost always not voluntary and neither is the relation ship with the companies in the first place unless you mean that technically you could become a hermit living in the woods.
AbanoubRodolf 6mo ago
[flagged]

falcor84 6mo ago

It's a false dichotomy - something being "a simple cost/benefit analysis" doesn't remove the ethical dimension, and can absolutely be nefarious. A movie villain saying "it was just business" doesn't make their actions less villainous.

conductr 6mo ago

I’d argue that there should be no higher business priority than shipping a product you already sold. If you sold a product and your customer spends their time documenting exactly why and how you sold them something that’s broken, you should make that a high priority. As a natural progression, you’ll start shipping less buggy / better tested products and that’s how you unlock yourself from the obligation you made to your existing customers to do other work. Not directed at you of course, just the proverbial “you” from the frustration of a purchaser of software.

FridgeSeal 6mo ago
Careful saying that too loudly, the “ship new features at all costs” gang will come for your head. They don’t approve of things like “quality software” and “making stuff that works past the demo and cursory inspection” or “actual user utility”.

nradov 6mo ago

I totally understand that from the perspective of individual employees: they have little incentive to do more than the bare minimum to close tickets. But this behavior is typically a symptom of broken corporate culture and failure to align internal metrics. For every customer who takes the trouble to submit a formal bug report there are likely many others who just live with it, and badmouth you to other customers. Doing deep investigations of even minor bug reports also tends to expose other, more serious latent bugs. And root cause analysis allows you to create closed-loop solutions to prevent similar future bugs. Large monopolistic tech companies like Apple and Microsoft can afford to ignore this stuff for years because there are few realistic alternatives. But longer term eventually a disruptive competitor comes along who takes product quality and customer service more seriously.

beembeem 6mo ago
Yes and no. Funny you mention Microsoft because I used to see bug reports for Windows. I can tell you there was a ton of low quality "SOMEONE HACKED MY COMPUTER" or similar feedback (and sometimes just unintelligible ranting) that was completely inactionable or unreproducible. I otherwise do agree with your premise that large monopolistic businesses can sit on large swaths of feedback without worrying about competition - and that this is a problem. However, for most software projects and businesses, the lack of repeated feedback is a signal that the issue isn't important. As a user I would hope that the software author/publisher is prioritizing important problems. Closing one ticket is not indicative of organizational rot, as you say.
SchemaLoad 6mo ago
There's also going to be mountains of bugs resulting from cosmic rays hitting the computer, defective ram chips, weird modifications of the system the reporter hasn't mentioned. You could sink an infinite amount of time investigating and find nothing. At some point you have to cut off the time investment when only one person has reported it and no devs have been able to reproduce it.
- ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
  What if no devs even tried to reproduce it, and they have no reason to believe they've fixed the bug with any other changes? That seems to be the case described in the article. In such a situation, I think it's dishonest to ask the reporter to expend even more effort when you've spent zero. Just close it if you don't want to do it, you don't have to be a jerk to your customers, too, by sending them off on a wild goose chase. Otherwise, why not ask the reporter to reproduce the issue every single day until you choose to fix it in some unknown point in the future, and if they miss a day, it gets closed? That seems just as arbitrary.
  - annie511266728 6mo ago
    Right. The problem isn’t closing the ticket, it’s pretending more work is happening than actually is. “Needs verification” is fine if someone has actually tried to reproduce it. Otherwise it’s just a nicer way of saying “we’re not going to look at this.”

godelski 6mo ago

> this often isn't nefarious. It's a simple cost/benefit analysis of spending time on something that one user is complaining about versus a backlog of higher business priorities. You can triage without closing tickets. So it is nefarious. It is metric hacking If you're having trouble reproducing, tag "needs verification" or something else. But closing a ticket isn't triaging, it is sweeping problems under the rug

olvy0 6mo ago
Exactly. Thank you for saying this.

nijave 6mo ago

I can sort of back that for desktop apps but telemetry is so trivial for webapps needing a reproducer is almost an embarrassing admission the operator has no clue what they're doing. Error tracking and tracing make it fairly straight forward to retroactively troubleshoot unreproducible issues.

account42 6mo ago
And total 24/7 surveillance also makes police work easier, but it's still wrong.
- nijave 6mo ago
  ...you're claiming error tracking and monitoring are wrong? We're talking about companies you voluntarily have a relationship with, not the government
  - account42 6mo ago
    The telemetry is almost always not voluntary and neither is the relation ship with the companies in the first place unless you mean that technically you could become a hermit living in the woods.

AbanoubRodolf 6mo ago

[flagged]