Why US Consumers Are So Angry: It's Not Just High Prices
Why are US consumers so angry? It's not just high prices
American consumers are facing an epidemic of rage driven by more than just inflation. From hidden fees and shoddy service to a federal retreat in consumer protection, households are losing billions to an annoyance economy. With watchdogs like the CFPB defanged and corporate power unchecked, the gap between consumer expectations and reality has never been wider, creating a toxic cycle of frustration and powerlessness.
Corporate power supremacy is staggeringly greater than 1970, consumer groups were complacent and consumer power had never been weaker.
- expectsomuch
All of the notes regarding the degraded quality and customer support / experience for products and services is true. But the additional factor is that so many of us are pushed to the brink now, in terms of affordability and costs of goods and services. If you're making good money and you order a sub-par product, it's definitely a frustration, but it's not the end of the world. But now, for so many, there is less margin for that kind of error.
That scammy product, pushed to us by an algorithm we can't control or escape, sold with lies and guarantees that will never be enforced, with deceptive ads generated by AI that becomes increasingly undistinguishable from the real thing, and flooded with positive reviews generated by bots, is money that won't go to essential things like food, rent, and transport, let alone healthcare, all of which is also increasingly unaffordable. The rage is understandable.
- thomassmith65
25 years ago, 'customer focus' was the buzz word.
Gmail (and similar products) killed it.
The internet made it possible for a company to serve hundreds of millions of people without the overhead of listening to, or supporting, or giving much of a shit about them. "Why are you complaining? It's free!"
Gmail envy makes it seem like you're some underachieving sucker if you bend over backwards to deliver a great customer experience.
It probably would be possible to have a billion customers and make them happy, but the number of employees it would take would only make you rich, instead of unfathomably rich.
- rawgabbit
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“It feels like a war on consumers,” said Sally Greenberg, the executive director of the National Consumers League, a 125-year-old consumer advocacy group. Households are being hit by “a tsunami of fees and hidden charges and tricks and traps”, she said.
American consumers face a paradox – they have more choices and higher expectations than ever before, thanks to innovations like delivery-on-demand and streaming services, said Peter Fader, a Wharton School marketing professor. “But not only does service just suck,” Fader said, consumers “are starting to realize that a lot of the cool data and technology is being used against them”.
- hermannj314
I think it is a wonderful time to start a business. Owner-run businesses tend to have great customer service. As consumers, we have some choice to give our attention to businesses where the people doing the work are the ones that own the company, if they aren't, then give your money to someone else. Stop supporting businesses that pay their taxes to Ireland.
This isn't a perfect solution and I know there are counter-examples, but I have been much more satisfied supporting small, local or owner-run shops.
- imartin2k
I am only commenting from afar (haven’t been in the US since around 10 yrs ago, but consuming a lot of US centric information), but could it be that the US economy has simply become too extractional? In my eyes, healthy capitalism needs a balance between profit-seeking and customer-satisfying. And at least from what I read and hear, the balance is now gone, with consumers being nickled and dimed while the quality of products and services going down. I am thinking of all the hotel junk fees for example, or how airlines keep segmenting customers so everybody gets exactly the lowest level of experience they can cope with, while paying as much as possible.
- chasil
This decade began with a pandemic. Its origins and impact can be debated, but it did enormous and lasting harm, unreasonably.
The last presidential election disenfranchised a party (and with it half the country), suppressing turnout. Half of this country had no say in their nominee, by design.
Then A.I. was predicted to end white collar employment.
And now we are at war, with threats to security and economic stability that are unpredictable.
Nobody wanted any of this. Such is the sentiment of our decade.
- SubiculumCode
All these things add up, and when they sit on top of core issues, e.g. home ownership that is out of reach and expensive (and wasn't for their parents/grandparents), taxes that are too high as soon as you manage to make a half-decent salary, for too little benefit as far as they can feel...is it any wonder?
- rsanek
> There’s a stew of factors at work behind the rise in consumer rage [including] the rise of AI customer service.
I'm not really sure the problem is AI here. I've had plenty of bad experiences with human customer service agents that were poorly-trained and hard to understand. An AI can be implemented in a shitty way, where it's at best a regurgitation of the help docs. Or, it can be implemented well, where it can autonomously take action without any human involved.
I have had a couple of experiences with the latter. Once you do, you realize that you actually don't need to talk to a person per se -- you just want your problem solved efficiently. That can be done with a human or an AI; it isn't really the most significant bit to be filtering on IMO.