While I agree with the general sentiment, the problem here isn't developers not being familiar with statistics, it's the simple fact all of this is profit driven most of the time.

I tried to purchase tickets for an event last week. I had to go through Ticketmaster as it was the only official way. They forced me to verify my account using a phone number, but whoever they were using for messages wasn't able to deliver a code to my number. I tried a few numbers from our household and they all failed.

Searching for this issue yielded a bunch of results, so it was definitely a known issue, but there wasn't anything I could do, really. To them, it's simple math. Another SMS provider that covers my (tiny EU) country might be more expensive. They might be avoiding scammers that used my mobile operator in the past. Whatever it is, it would probably cost them more than they lose in ticket sales.

Without some government entity to force them, they don't give a shit about me being able to see an event.

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Certhas 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Infrastructure should not be (purely) profit driven. To improve profits for train operators, the simple option is to cut lines serving small and rural communities. The economics are much worse than serving large cities. Same for cell coverage and broadband internet. Most profitable is to just not cover a few percent of the population.

There is a point where technology becomes foundational for participating in society. And then it needs to be regulated to be available to everyone.

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groundzeros2015 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> the simple option is to cut lines serving small and rural communities

We don’t see this in practice to though. Three examples:

1. In the airline industry big airlines don’t go everywhere for this reasons but small local airlines fill the gap due to market opportunity.

2. Changes in technology enable big companies to operate more efficiently. See starlink.

3. Big companies know that ubiquity is important for their brand. In practice Amazon will deliver packages across the US.

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christina97 7 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

The airline industry gets huge subsidies in most countries to operate more rural/less profitable routes. Most of the passenger airports in the US for instance would not be viable without subsidies (most flights go to a few profitable hubs, but the long tail or airports forms the majority by count).

Amazon delivers everywhere because USPS subsidizes package delivery to unprofitable areas. You don’t get next day prime except in a relatively small proportion of the country (by area).

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card_zero 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Meanwhile in Britain in the 1960s, this cost-cutting closure of local rail lines did happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts ... at a time when the trains and rail infrastructure had been publicly owned for about 15 years already. It doesn't dispel the incentive.

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BoxOfRain 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have never heard the name Beeching spoken with more venom than in Wales, I used to live in Mid Wales and now I live in Cardiff. If I wanted to visit where I used to live by train, I'd have to do a multi-hour detour of a sightseeing trip around the West Midlands, deep into England. The Beeching Axe literally cut Wales in half and the consequences are felt to this day, even though there wasn't much outright salting the Earth to make sure the terrible decision couldn't be reversed as there was in some cases, the Welsh government doesn't have the money to reinstate the Aberystwyth-Carmarthen line which would deal with a lot of these north-south issues.

Also it's not just Wales where Beeching carried out intense vandalism of public infrastructure, the South West was severely affected too. Basically anywhere that wasn't London-centric suffered, which is the British government to a T regardless of the party in power. The general assumption was that private cars would replace the local trains, which as someone who currently doesn't drive for medical reasons really makes my blood boil. While perhaps not in intent, in effect the Beeching Axe was a profound kick in the teeth for the disabled.

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groundzeros2015 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’m not arguing a rail has never been closed. I’m arguing that being a small difficult market doesn’t exclude you from being served by marketed forces.

Did nobody ever operate rail to those cities again due to them being rural?

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card_zero 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Rural cities? Come again? What was demolished remained demolished, yes. Unclear on your point.

Oh I see (thanks to that edit). I mean, I agree with you. This is just the additional amusing detail that government-run services are still subject to a sort of dulled and homogenous version of market forces, which can be worse for small local concerns because it's less responsive. Though, admittedly, a giant corporation can simulate government very well, and can be just as crap.

	▲	groundzeros2015 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s confirmed in the opening summary: > A few of these routes have since reopened. Some short sections have been preserved as heritage railways, while others have been incorporated into the National Cycle Network or used for road schemes > Some, such as the bulk of the Midland Metro network around Birmingham and Wolverhampton, have since been incorporated into light rail lines. Furthermore, the transformation to other transportation forms suggests this event also coincides with changing technology.

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derektank 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>In the airline industry big airlines don’t go everywhere for this reasons but small local airlines fill the gap due to market opportunity.

You’re not wrong, but small and rural airports would not be able to maintain even these routes without EAS (essential air services) subsidies

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miltonlost 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You cut off the OP's sentence of that being examples for "Rail companies" and then added your own examples. Please be better at comprehesion and editing comments

"In practice Amazon will deliver packages across the US." You know they use the Postal Service for last miles often? And the Postal Service is required by law to service far-flung places. So Amazon is only, in practice, delivering packages to those places due to USPS.

	▲	groundzeros2015 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> then added your own examples. Please be better at comprehesion and editing comments Did you miss the part where the conversation was about Ticketmaster and rails were used as an analogy for understanding the problem? > So Amazon is only, in practice, delivering packages to those places due to USPS. I don’t think that’s true as I can buy many things on Amazon which cannot be shipped via USPS.

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account42 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, we need to update what is considered essential infrastructure in the digital age.

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ryandrake an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yea, when this topic comes up on HN, a lot of the usual excuses appear: It's hard to write software that works everywhere! It takes too long to test on more than one browser! It's too expensive to hire someone to port to X platform! We're trying to bootstrap in a hurry--there's no time to support Y people! Everybody should just upgrade to the latest, why should we test on older systems?

These are attitudes come from the privilege of never having been in that 2% of users, and I think we have them until that one day we end up being in that 2% and can't use the system ourselves.

When I wrote iOS apps, I was constantly infuriated by the tech lead's and product management's insistence to only support the current major OS version and the previous one. Engineers would take time out of their day to rip out support for iOS X-2 (rather than fixing bugs, working on performance or features)! Code that wasn't in the way of refactors, wasn't really buggy, wasn't harming anything architecturally. To me, it just looked like Griefing The User. I didn't get it and I still don't. Now, I have a 8 year old phone, and lo and behold, half of the apps in the AppStore don't even work on it anymore because of this attitude, so I guess I'm firmly in the 2%.

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groundzeros2015 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think when you say “profit motivated” the underlying principle is actually utilitarianism; doing the most good for the most people, for which profit Is merely an imperfect proxy.

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MatekCopatek an hour ago | parent [-]

This might be a cynical take, but I doubt Ticketmaster (and most of these other examples) are motivated by doing the most good. Their underlying principle is extracting the most value for shareholders at any cost.

Some people argue even that behavior ends up producing the most good, but I cannot accept that level of mental gymnastics.

	▲	groundzeros2015 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		There is a limited amount of engineering resources. Don’t you agree they should try to use them for the benefit of the most people? That’s not to say they should exclude groups. But a small minority path probably gets less work than a main path. Would you agree these prudent or not?