The Say the Magic Words Toll Booth

As I’ve mentioned earlier, my workstation computer soiled the bedsheets ten days ago or so. I wasn’t out of business or anything, but it certainly took a toll on my efficiency. It was just plain harder to do stuff on an ad hoc setup. I’m not terribly efficient on a good day, but I’m doing a lot of disparate things. Introducing any additional friction is more than unwelcome. Honestly, my reach has always exceeded my grasp. A busted power supply just highlighted it.

The process for recovery was instructive. I’ve been monkeying around inside computers well before there was an internet. The software in them is inscrutable, when it’s not plain stupid, but the hardware holds no terrors. An old Dell is just a plug and play agglomeration of perfectly understandable components. It wasn’t difficult to diagnose the problem. It no turnie on = bad power supply.

There are about seven thousand different versions of the old Dell Optiplex I’m using, but it didn’t take long to find an identical replacement  part online. I tried opening up any number of other abandoned computer towers we have in the house first, to see if any would fit, but no dice. So I had to buy one.

The problem isn’t that you can’t find the exact part. The problem is the exact part is available from eleventy-billion dropshipping mouthbreathers on every ecommerce site on the web. There’s no way to choose wisely between any of them, so I don’t. I ended up at Amazon, and looked for items that were listed as on the shelf. I figured that Amazon is the devil I know, so it reduced the disappointment factor by a few percentage points. Amazon doesn’t like me for no good reason. I return the sentiment for very good reasons, including their bad reason. But people like to give us gift cards for birthdays and Christmas and such, and we use them up on stuff like this.

So Amazon says they’ll deliver it in eight days. Today was the eighth day. It came today. I was willing to pay for them to rush the thing, but the option wasn’t offered. They simply put about half a dozen “dark pattern” screens and buttons between me and what I wanted, trying to get me to sign up for their ridiculous monthly Prime vigorish scheme. They can ask until Satan joins the Ice Capades. Ain’t happening.

I find the whole process more tedious than infuriating. I knew exactly what was going to happen when I pressed the order button, and I wasn’t disappointed. I knew without knowing, as they say, that if they could commit to a firm date, that the thing was on a shelf, ready to go. They could have sent it right away, and I would have had it last week. They held the order until yesterday, then sent it to arrive today. It had to be sent as a kind of rush order to make it here overnight, but they did it. This has happened to me enough times so I expect it.

They could have sent it to me a day after I ordered it. It was only maybe four hours from my house the whole time. They deliberately offered worse service than what was possible in order to try to force me into their subscription scheme. That’s an insane way to handle commerce between a willing buyer and a willing seller. But modern business practice is all ulterior motive-driven at this point.

I understand that charging more money for rush service is appropriate. This isn’t like that. They had to hamstring themselves to keep the item on the shelf so I couldn’t have it when I wanted it. It would have been easier and more lucrative for them if they sent it to me right away. They couldn’t charge me for the item until it shipped, so they were even risking a cancelled order if I found it somewhere else in the interim. They don’t care, because they’re not really in the business of selling things for money anymore. Their business is getting between me and what I want, and keeping me from having it until I pay a monthly ransom. And rockets and newspapers and who knows what else.

For the most part, the entire internet is now based on this principle. Everywhere digital is some form of weird speakeasy. They open a slot and look you over to decide if they’ve spied on you enough and fleeced you properly before they let you in. I really can’t be bothered to figure out what business a business like Amazon is really in anymore.

The internet is the “information highway”? Pfffft. It’s ten million toll booths holding hands. Pay up, sucka.