Trust

Last week, I wrote about the frustration of finding a particular football game on YouTubeTV, how YoutubeTV prioritized its own goals over those of the viewer, and how frustrating that was.

One feature grouping that I don't think I ever saw implicitly in a product spec was "Trust." What are we doing with our product to earn our customers' trust, show them respect, and make them advocates for us? It was often an implicit value of the team and product, but I don't recall ever seeing it as an explicit goal. And maybe it should be.

Amazon Shopping

If you search for “USB-C cable” on Amazon right now, here are some great brands you will get on the first page of results: Jsygdq%, PGQBS, LOFPYE, Hrbzo, etguuds.  They each have store pages with nice-looking graphics, and all their products have large numbers of reviews averaging 4.5 or above, which is more reviews and higher ratings than products from Anker or Belkin.  

This trend is not limited to a few product categories. It’s a widespread issue that affects almost every product you can think of, from toasters to bookshelves to Bluetooth speakers.  

This is not news to anyone.  It is another form of “enshittification”.  Amazon has pushed for ever lower prices and has made it even easier for low-priced merchants to participate, and all the merchants are gaming the system; this synthetic brand name goofiness is just another aspect. 

(It is an interesting contrast with AWS, which only features Amazon-engineered products with significant quality and support commitments.  There is an AWS marketplace, which is a little more freewheeling, but even that is highly curated.)

Amazon is optimizing for price competition and breadth of merchants at the expense of customer trust.  The Amazon shopping site can no longer be trusted as a guide to good or popular products.  This pushes shoppers to do research and comparison at other sites or use different tools. Amazon becomes just the place to set up an order once they have selected a product using other means.  

This seems long-term problematic for Amazon.  Some concerns:

• Amazon encourages consumers to start their shopping elsewhere, allowing other sites to siphon off sales traffic.  
• Every transaction at Amazon takes longer as consumers sift through a lot of noise.
• If consumers can’t trust Amazon’s flagship product, how are they going to feel about other Amazon efforts — devices, etc?

Medicare

We are approaching the age at which we can enroll for Medicare.  And so, we are getting a flood of physical mail and email.  So much mail.  This is an important decision that will have years of economic impact.  It demands a thoughtful approach. We need trusted information from trustworthy people.

The outreach mail includes:

• A helpful outline of the options and process from the Social Security Administration, a slightly more formal version of this.  It is not very actionable, but is clear and trustworthy.
• Letters from a couple of different brokers offering to help us.  We don’t know how much to trust these; brokers get compensated based on what insurance plan we pick, though their letters outlining our choices seem accurate.
• Various organizations offering “free” classes on Medicare selection, which, in fine print, are hosted by insurers and plan providers.   If you are not paying, you are the product.
• Glossy brochures from so many vendors, mostly pushing us towards Medicare Advantage plans.  United Health, Cigna, AARP (reselling United Health), 5-10 more.   They all tout the wonders of their plan without explaining the choices available to us.  They are very biased, and none of them are upfront about the limitations of Medicare Advantage – notably, the substantial network limits that come into play.

All these organizations worked hard on their brochures.  However, trust comes not just from what an organization says about its offering but also from how these words compare with other messages the customer is getting.  The vendors have not considered the blizzard of info their target customers are receiving and are not delivering content that stands out.  They all tout their biased point of view, and it all goes in the waste bin.  

Vendors have to establish trust and credibility, or their outreach is wasted (and maybe even has a negative impact).  The brokers come the closest to establishing trust — they outline the problems accurately and offer to help guide us through the morass.  That shows an understanding of and respect for the customer’s problem. 

Travel

Thrillist has a great article about the rising use of Google Docs as travel guides.  Traditional travel sites and guides have degraded, and influencers pollute social media.  These private shared Google Docs are a great antidote — personal recommendations by real people who are uncompensated and have authentic voices. 

The technology behind this kind of travel guide is primitive — shared Google Docs with all the interface shortcomings.  But that is kind of the point — it is an authentic grassroots voice that allows for easy sharing and feedback. The clunkiness of the interface actually contributes to trust – it says, "I am just a regular person, I'm not worried about presentation, I just want to share some good info."

(BTW, in the spirit of this, here is my nascent list of Lopez Island travel tips. Feel free to comment!) 

Authenticity and Trust

This is precisely what people want in every category — travel, shopping, medical care selection, whatever.  We want to hear the authentic voices of real people who have used the product or service; we want to connect with them; we want the color that an actual human provides; and we want the quirkiness that an actual human offers. 

As AI creeps into all these categories — we will still want to hear from and connect with real people.  And large vendors should explicitly think about trust and plan for it in their products and services. Amazon, for instance, could certainly retain its broad marketplace while weaving in trusted editorial voices. Some shoppers may want the cheapest, but others value guidance from trusted sources.

Automotive software followup

I've written several times about the huge challenges traditional auto OEMs face in their software efforts.

Good article this week on Ford’s skunkworks in California — a team outside the traditional Ford culture, outside the Ford supply network, outside the Ford physical campus, populated by people who built their careers at Tesla, Apple, and Rivian.  This is the path for automakers — like famous skunkworks in the past, for instance, the IBM PC project.  The Chinese automakers are coming, so Ford has to crank fast and hard and can't be constrained by legacy organizational issues.

Halloween Fun followup

I wrote several weeks ago about Halloween fog machines.  A great, fun use of technology — if you have the driveway or yard for it, it is worth the effort.  

Once you have a nice swirling fog, there is nothing like thunder and lightning to ramp up the mood.   You can find thunder and lightning soundtracks in many places and set up some speakers to be driven by them.   You need some simple lighting controllers, sometimes called color organs, to make the lightning effect.  Here is a Fright Props budget choice or a more expensive one.  And there are plenty more choices up there or at other sites.   Depending on your space, you may need multiple controllers.   You will also need some appropriate lighting, preferably some lights with quick on response and a little bit of fade.   Halogen task lights from home improvement stores work well and can be used for other purposes during the rest of the year.