Re:Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon
by vegetablepotpie on Thursday January 21, 2021 @10:07AM
(#25859545)
I feel like this is a double edged sword. Corporations have already embraced this idea of converting cost centers into profit centers and it makes life more difficult for consumers. Every time I call support at my ISP, because my internet is down, they work on my problem and tell me that my plan is slow and that I can upgrade my package for an increase in my bill.
This sets up perverse incentives, that as far as I can tell, are theoretical, but have potential to become more prevalent. Because of the cost center as a profit center idea, my ISP can generate more revenue by providing less value to me. If failing infrastructure causes me to call support more often, and more support calls increase the likelihood of more revenue, why should the ISP invest in better infrastructure?
The key to having a successful business is to carefully align the incentives of specialities in an organization to make the most competitive offerings to the market. If there are competitors, and customers can switch to them, and the competition is more compelling, then I would go to other ISPs.
I agree that what is good for an individual company is not necessarily good for consumers or the market as a whole, and that there is always a balance to find, but that's another issue. After all, the ideal scenario for a company is to have customers pay for support without actually using it most of the time.
Support can very much be a profit center. Support personnel is relatively cheap; if their services are priced correctly, they can easily become a stream of recurring income - and everybody knows that "recurring income is best income".
However, this requires efficiency and creativity at the managerial level. It's easier to see support as a burden and just work on shrinking its costs, instead of maximizing its revenues by formulating good price plans. The former is an internal effort that is fairly easy to implement in short timeframes and will easily win brownie points with direct superiors (who doesn't like to cut costs?); the latter requires actual pricing skills and market knowledge, and might take a while to get results. The mediocre manager will always prefer the former.