No one put words in your mouth, they asked you a question. You are the one who made the initial comparison to B2C apps, so it seems like a fair question to me. Your comment implies that its standard and the app isn't doing anything out of the ordinary when I think most people would except an official government app to be held to a higher standard than the average B2C app.

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gruez 10 hours ago | parent [-]

>You are the one who made the initial comparison to B2C apps, so it seems like a fair question to me.

The relevant part of B2C is the 2C part, not the B. Mass market apps are generally ridden with telemetry and SDKs. Moreover I'm not sure how you think it's a "fair question" to go from a remark about how other apps are equally bad, to thinking I want the US government to operate as a business. It's like doing:

A: "I called the IRS and was put on hold for 2 hours, can you believe that?"

B: "To be fair that's the experience calling into most businesses, like banks or the cable company"

A: "Wow so you think we should be running the IRS like a bank?"

>I think most people would except an official government app to be held to a higher standard than the average B2C app.

Is this a "yes, in an ideal world that's how things should be" type of statement, or are you claiming "yes, government agencies have a track record of delivering technical excellence on software projects, and this particular project was especially bad"? The former is basically a meaningless platitude, and I don't think anyone seriously thinks the latter is true.

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ryandrake 9 hours ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

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9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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gruez 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>Ok, so then it just sounds like whataboutism.

The flip side of "whataboutism" is "isolated demands for rigor"[1]. Going back to the IRS example, is it a fair retort to point out that IRS's hotline only sucks as much as any other large organization's hotline, or is it "whataboutism"?

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...

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chirau 9 hours ago | parent [-]

It's the government, the US government. By far the largest employer and spender in the world. So yes, they are held to a higher standard. Businesses intentionally throttle customer service lines for profit reasons. The government should not. How is this difficult to understand?

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gruez 9 hours ago | parent [-]

>So yes, they are held to a higher standard.

See my earlier comment about how this is a meaningless platitude.

>Businesses intentionally throttle customer service lines for profit reasons. The government should not.

None of this was presupposed in the original comment, only that wait times are long.

	▲	chirau 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		what the hell do you mean meaningless platitude? Do you understand the difference between civic duty and corporate duty? If a company proactively evades taxes for profit, do you give the government the same pass? Companies skate and fight all this through litigation and interpretation. The government's duty is to the people and to uphold the law, not fight it. They are held to a higher standard of law, accountability and practice in all undertakings. What exactly are you refuting here?