shopping – Page 2

Card declined

Card declined.

I’m at the drive-thru window trying to tap my card but it’s declined. Not authorised. Payment method not accepted.

I try another. Declined.

I’m out of cards. I’m sorry but I only have the two. I’m not one of those people with a bulging wallet of plastic, unloyal to any one high street bank. I scrambled around my vehicle hunting for spare change. I have just enough for the over-priced beverage.

“Don’t worry” she says. “It’s been happening all morning”.

Interesting. So chances are it isn’t the fault of either of my banks, but a problem with the common payment system between them and the coffee franchise, or the franchise’s own IT system.

I find it amusing that places like this particular coffee franchise prefer cash, yet cash is still king. It doesn’t need patching or rebooting. It’s accepted almost everywhere. Especially when the IT system plays up.

Owning something expensive

When owning something expensive the expense is not just associated with the purchase price. The cost of use also needs to be taken into consideration.

I learned this the hard way in my youth when purchasing a second-hand sports car. I could just about afford the car and could only see how much fun it would be to drive it and how cool I would look. (The latter turned out not to be true).

The car was indeed fun to drive but when parts failed they were expensive to replace, servicing was costly, and it didn’t do great on fuel, so trips to the fuelling station were frequent.

It was fun while it lasted but when considering owning something expensive, whatever it is, consider the cost of ownership and not just the purchase price.

Big faceless organisations

I miss the days before the internet sometimes. Especially when dealing with companies. They think they are being efficient dealing with customers only through the web or an app, using AI agents to deal with enquiries and having complex digital complaints procedures.

Once they have your money and you experience problems with their product or service, good luck reaching an actual human to talk to. Or getting your money back.

If you are an IT geek though you might have a chance. I’ve managed to talk to humans and get my money back on several occasions, but it took a bunch of skills that the average person just doesn’t have such as:

– Understanding how web pages work and reading the page source
– OSINT
– How to hack AI
– Side-channels
– Exploiting software bugs

It shouldn’t require a degree in IT in order to get decent customer service but that’s been my experience.

Whose art is it really?

I found myself at a Christmas craft market recently, and at one stall I stopped to admire some artwork. The stallholder was selling coasters, mugs, canvas bags, and tea towels covered in her art. The colours were vibrant and the art was detailed, almost 3D.

I complimented her on her work. She said thank you then proceeded to tell me how her and her husband enjoy creating these products. Then she said “although he uses a different AI program to me”.

It turns out that she is not an artist but a Midjourney user. This got me thinking: is this therefore her art or someone else’s? Her skills lie not in creating the art itself, but in prompting the AI to create it, refining what it creates, and weeding out any errors such as 6-fingers or too many appendages.

The art was good, very good, and the prices were high, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy anything. Why? I wasn’t quite sure. Whom am I rewarding for the work? Are real artists losing out?

What are your thoughts on works created by AI?

The town centre

It’s nice to have a change of scenery once in a while, especially when writing. Looking at the same surroundings day after day can become somewhat dull after a while. To shake things up I like to hop on a bus and travel to a high street in any nearby town, find a coffee shop or bar, find a seat by a window, unpack my mobile office from my go bag, and start writing.

Over the past few years I’ve noticed a real change in the high streets I visit: less big chains, more empty shops, and more of a diverse specific set of shops.

It may be different where you live but I’m seeing more vape shops, nail and hair salons, foreign supermarkets, tattoo parlors, phone and gadget accessory shops, betting shops, and cheap shops (known as pound shops in the UK).

Supply and demand would indicate that there is a need for these stores if they are thriving. I believe that these are not new shops, just new to the high street. Maybe they were once down a side street or high street adjacent.

With the big chains going into administration or reducing the number of stores they operate, we are seeing more space opening up on the high street, and nature abhors a vacuum, or at least commercial landlords do. Rents are negotiated downwards, government initiatives are introduced around business rates to encourage entrepreneurs to take up the opportunity, and voila! We have shops that usually occupy an off high street location being relocated on it side-by-side with the few remaining big chains.

Don’t get me wrong, I think change is good. I’m all for a diverse high street meeting the needs of the people. I’m just curious to see how it evolves further.

What are your thoughts? Do you still visit your local high street? Do you think the high street has a future in our evolving culture?

If you have to ask

I do love the ambience of a good coffee shop. The aroma of freshly ground coffee wrapped around the delicious notes of freshly baked pastries.

Coffee shops are a great place to chill and unwind with a good book or to write. I prefer certain chains but also like to explore off the beaten track taking in the originality of independents.

On occasion I’ve encountered independents that do not put prices on anything. So I ask how much a food or drink item costs and at one place I was informed that “If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it”. This is not only rude but pretentious. I left. It’s not that I couldn’t afford it, it’s that I did not want to support such a business. If an establishment can’t be upfront about their prices then they don’t get my business.

If the first time that you find out how much something costs is when you pay the bill, would you be happy?

Lamenting on customer service today

Depending on how old you are you may remember a time when you knew each member of the team that worked at your bank and they wanted to keep you as a customer and would rectify any problem no matter how small. Or when you received bad service at a large store even online you would receive great customer service to rectify the issue?

I can recall the early days of Twitter when there weren’t that many of us on there. I posted a tweet about a particular issue I had with a product one time and within the hour the company was in touch asking how they could resolve the issue to my satisfaction. Today you’d be hard pressed to be able to reach a human. You are more likely to encounter chatbots running on a pre-configured algorithmic loop, or AI of some sort. If you do manage to reach a human they probably don’t work for the company and are following a script delivered in broken english from a country far far away.

In the search for cheaper products and services, and larger profits, quality has suffered and when you want to complain there is no person to complain to.

You could use OSINT to reach the CEO and try complaining that way. I tried that once and he said he’d resolve the issue asap then behind the scenes got his PA to tell me to go away. One face for the publicity another for the actual service. We care, we care a lot.. about our profits and shareholders.

The most expensive liquid is..

..printer ink.

No seriously, I have been thinking about this for some time. By volume printer ink is one of the most expensive liquids known to man. It’s so expensive that supermarkets have even taken to putting security tags on the cartridges it sells to reduce theft. It’s more expensive than alcohol and most top-shelf perfumes per volume.

Long gone are the days where you would take your USB sticks to a print centre to print copies of your resume (CV) or dissertation. Nowadays most people want to print from the comfort of their own home using their inkjet printer. And they apparently are prepared to pay to do so.

Buying a new or replacement printer generally involves weighing up the cost of the ink. Most manufacturers will sell you a printer at cost or even a loss knowing that they will make the money back on the ink. With third-party ink sellers trying to steal market share they’ll try every trick in the book to make sure that you buy their ink using firmware updates that ensure that third-party ink is not recognised, or makes it appear to run-out sooner, to selling you ink subscriptions that automatically send you ink when you are getting low, at a premium of course.

Considering that we are talking millilitres here not litres it’s amazing that you are paying a small fortune for such a small quantity of liquid, yet somehow the home printing industry has mastered the art of making liquid gold.