This Analogy Doesn’t Really Help

In a post today about application signing, Mike Rowehl said in passing:

I don’t call Comcast when a virus screws up my PC

To which I immediately thought, "I didn't buy my computer from Time Warner Cable, either." And it doesn't have their logo silkscreened on the front.

Operators, especially in the US, like to complain that customers call them too much or about what they perceive as things that are not their problem. They'd like to go to the desktop computer model, which as far as I know is the "you better have a smart friend" model, and in practice drives sales of wintel boxes cause a new computer is easier than than fixing one. To this effect, they even try to make app developers foot the cost, and penalize them for customer care calls to the operator.

The model the operators have propagated of selling devices with their brand, from their store, and doing whatever they can to assure they operate on their own networks only, brought this on. For that matter, the software and internet experience is similarly branded and/or constrained to the operator network.

And all these operators are shocked and amazed (and annoyed) when customers call them to complain about service, or don't understand where the device ends and the network starts. Or where the network ends and some application starts.

Years ago, when I started at a non-GSM carrier, I rather liked the closed-ecosystem model from a new-user and support perspective. Without a mobile internet, I certainly didn't care how open it was at first. Sure it has issues now, but the biggest seems to be the operators' misunderstanding of what caused the issue, and therefore how to get out of it.

I didn’t buy my phone from AT&T either though, and it doesn’t have their logo silkscreened on it. Ultimately that’s not the point however. The point is that the closed ecosystem isn’t doing well at servicing user needs, and a more open one would do better. About which I believe we agree.

Oh, I think we agree. I was using your link as it was easier than finding someone else’s cause I read it today.

Anyway, we chatted about this today, and I am not sure pure open would do it. VZW and Sprint are pretty locked in (architecturally) to the operator-sells-device model. Anyway, breaking out of the operator-only ecosystem might only lead us all to the crappy desktop support system.

Barbara had an interesting point: voicemail is not really something built by the operator. They buy it from a vendor. So why not consider that, and practically everything except the network itself to be a 3P application and the app developer has to provide support.

I can imagine, say, calling the operator care number gets you a first level “this is your problem, let me transfer you” service, and 80% of calls are sent to these 3rd parties. Aside from cutting operator costs, going to guys who know what they are talking about could help everyone.

Etc. we can talk about this for days.