Extra prepaid mobile - have one?

[Manfred Belheim]

People don't have to like it, but they should stop complaining about it for free services. Vote with your dollars, pay for a service that doesn't collect the information you don't want to share.

Rather strange attitude - "don't complain, just fork out money instead"?

It doesn't matter if it's free to the end user or not, they're still providing a product/service that they make money out of, so being vocal about what you will and won't accept is the only way to change things. And change they surely will if enough people desire/demand that change.

Just because it's free doesn't mean they're doing it out of the kindness of their heart, so there's no need to keep quiet out of politeness.

 

[Zelig]

Google asks occasionally, and I always say no since there's no reason they'd need my phone number to provide free e-mail

Easier password resets is a pretty obvious need.

I really can't think of any reason why that would be a problem for anyone.

My problem isn't that they want my phone number...my problem is that they are now using give us your mobile number in place of all previous methods for retrieving your password. If I happen to have a mobile number to give them, and someday I need to retrieve that password, odds are I won't have that mobile number any more. So basically they are telling me 'if you lose your password you are just SOL, beat it ya non mobile phoning luddite'. And that irritates me.

What previous methods no longer work?

(And a phone only allows to reset a password, no system that isn't critically flawed allows for passwords to be retrieved.)

Rather strange attitude - "don't complain, just fork out money instead"?

It's not a strange attitude, I think advertising is a poison on society and that people should pay for services rather than using ad-supported ones, so that service providers' primary motivation is good service rather than maximizing advertising. As such, I have no patience for people who whine that their ad-supported services don't quite do what they want.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

What previous methods no longer work?

(And a phone only allows to reset a password, no system that isn't critically flawed allows for passwords to be retrieved.)

All of them. And yeah reset is what I meant. Tell us the answer to this question, which you gave us before, and here's your temporary password. Tell us you forgot and we will send your temporary password to the alternate e-mail you gave us. All have now been replaced with 'we will text your temporary password to the mobile phone you gave us the number for. Seems more secure than the old ways, no question...but I don't keep a mobile phone.

 

[Zelig]

All of them. And yeah reset is what I meant. Tell us the answer to this question, which you gave us before, and here's your temporary password. Tell us you forgot and we will send your temporary password to the alternate e-mail you gave us. All have now been replaced with 'we will text your temporary password to the mobile phone you gave us the number for. Seems more secure than the old ways, no question...but I don't keep a mobile phone.

Secure services (in the context of correctly implemented security) don't send temporary passwords (It's an important distinction - your service provider should never, ever be able to know your password - if they can, their security protocols are critically broken.), they send reset codes, and don't allow security questions alone to be used to reset passwords. (And security questions are dumb anyway, they're basically just extra passwords, except even less secure than your actual password.)

I'm nearly positive gmail has never allowed security question alone to reset a password, and they still allow resets via email.

If your only issue is not having a physical phone, just use a Google Voice number (or Skype or comparable service for Non-Americans) for services that require a phone number. Though keep in mind that this entire thread, and my answers was predicated on the assumption that you already have a mobile phone, since it's specifically asking about the presence of a second phone.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

What is a Google Voice number?

 

[Zelig]

Not applicable to non-Americans, hence my note about "comparable service for Non-Americans".

 

[Manfred Belheim]

It's not a strange attitude, I think advertising is a poison on society and that people should pay for services rather than using ad-supported ones, so that service providers' primary motivation is good service rather than maximizing advertising. As such, I have no patience for people who whine that their ad-supported services don't quite do what they want.

I can understand you not liking advertising, but I'm not sure what you mean by "maximising advertising". Obviously they want to maximise the exposure the adverts get, by maximising the user base, and it would seem to me that providing good service would certainly be one key way to do this. Unless you're of the opinion that anything with advertising on it is automatically bad service to begin with?

But whether they make money directly from the customer, or through advertising revenue, they're still in essentially the same business - providing a service that people want to use in order to make money out of it. In both cases, if the user doesn't like something about the service, it's in everyone's interest for them to speak up about it. I don't agree that it only makes sense to complain if you're forking over the money yourself.

 

[Zelig]

"Maximizing advertising" = maximizing revenue from advertising.

Empirically, companies which are entirely advertising-supported (Google) behave much differently in their consumer friendliness than companies which are entirely hardware-supported (Apple).

Advertising-supported media directly leads to native advertising, click-bait headlines and plagiarism, all of which decrease the quality of service.

Do you think non-paying users should have a right to complain about anything? How about complaining that free service tiers don't give all the features of paid tiers from the same service provider? (i.e. complaining that free Spotify can't do everything that paid Spotify does) I think it's clear that some complaints about free services are frivolous, and I think that complaining about a phone number requirement, which has essentially no user downsides, while making it cheaper to provide a free service, is one of those complaints.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Advertising-supported media directly leads to native advertising, click-bait headlines and plagiarism, all of which decrease the quality of service.

I don't know what native advertising is, but click-bait headlines and plagiarism... that sounds more like a decrease in the quality of the adverts themselves. But as I don't click on those things anyway, I don't care about that. It's the quality of the actual email/site/whatever that I care about, and if I don't like that then I won't use it and won't see the ads, so it's in their interest to make the actual service good.

Do you think non-paying users should have a right to complain about anything?

Yes, for the reasons I just gave. They're not paying themselves, but their mere presence on the site generates revenue, so they are responsible for the income. It's not really about a "right", it's more that you can't stop people complaining about things they don't like, and it's in the company's best interests to listen to the complaints (or at the very least know they exist) so that they can keep people going there and keep generating ad revenue.

How about complaining that free service tiers don't give all the features of paid tiers from the same service provider? (i.e. complaining that free Spotify can't do everything that paid Spotify does)

I don't know if this question was addressed at me specifically, but that's not the sort of situation I was talking about at all so I have no comment here.

I think it's clear that some complaints about free services are frivolous, and I think that complaining about a phone number requirement, which has essentially no user downsides, while making it cheaper to provide a free service, is one of those complaints.

Doesn't really matter what you think about it. If enough people don't like it and boycott a service because of it, no matter how frivolous you consider that to be, it will have a negative impact on revenue that could have been avoided by paying more attention to what people want. And I don't really buy this argument that it makes anything cheaper. I don't see what difference it makes if an entirely automated services asks me what the name of my first pet was, or sends me an activation link to a different email address, or sends me a text to my mobile phone. No human was involved in any part of any of those processes, no massive labour was enacted, and they're all essentially the same thing at heart. If anything, you would think that a text message or phone call would incur MORE cost than either of the other methods as there's a mobile phone network involved in the process who will undoubtedly want some form of remuneration for the privilege.

 

[Zelig]

I don't know what native advertising is, but click-bait headlines and plagiarism... that sounds more like a decrease in the quality of the adverts themselves. But as I don't click on those things anyway, I don't care about that. It's the quality of the actual email/site/whatever that I care about, and if I don't like that then I won't use it and won't see the ads, so it's in their interest to make the actual service good.

No, that's all directly referencing article quality, not advertisement quality. Wiki/google native advertising.

Yes, for the reasons I just gave.

I don't know if this question was addressed at me specifically, but that's not the sort of situation I was talking about at all so I have no comment here.

Same situations, which is why it was in a single paragraph, and you're making it confusing by breaking up context.

And I don't really buy this argument that it makes anything cheaper.

Not having people deal with support tickets is cheaper than having people deal with support tickets.

 

[Hygro]

GEt to the pHone in SoutH LIberty CAMpus.

 

[Flying Pig]

I have a second, cheap Pay as You Go phone since I got an iPhone; if I'm going to spend a week in a tent at Bisley or going walking somewhere, I don't really want to carry something expensive and fragile, especially when it actually has a shorter battery life than the cheap phone.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

No, that's all directly referencing article quality, not advertisement quality. Wiki/google native advertising.

I was talking about services like gmail, yahoo (mail) and Skype. There is no editorial content in any of these things.

Same situations, which is why it was in a single paragraph, and you're making it confusing by breaking up context.

Nope, not at all. There's a big difference between complaining about a free service in and of itself (especially when there isn't even a paid upgrade), and complaining about a free service specifically because it doesn't offer the same as the paid service. The latter is clearly a silly thing to do, and not related to the former in any meaningful way. I'm not talking about the latter.

Not having people deal with support tickets is cheaper than having people deal with support tickets.

When did anyone ever have to get a support ticket for a forgotten password? You'd just get a security question or a link emailed to another address. Completely automated. And if there was a more involved problem that required actual support from a human being, I don't see how giving them your phone number would magically alter that. You'd still need support from a human being. This argument doesn't add up.

 

[Zelig]

I was talking about services like gmail, yahoo (mail) and Skype. There is no editorial content in any of these things.

I don't think "editorial content" is the term you're looking for, advertising dollars corrupt media regardless of editorial content. In any case, ads objectively decrease factors like privacy (gmail) or battery life (Skype).

Nope, not at all. There's a big difference between complaining about a free service in and of itself (especially when there isn't even a paid upgrade), and complaining about a free service specifically because it doesn't offer the same as the paid service. The latter is clearly a silly thing to do, and not related to the former in any meaningful way. I'm not talking about the latter.

No, there is no such clear difference.

If Service A has free tier 1 and paid tier 2, and service B has only a single paid tier identical to paid tier 2 of Service A, there's essentially no difference at all.

When did anyone ever have to get a support ticket for a forgotten password?

Any company with the scale of Google/Facebook/Twitter/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon/etc. gets loads of these every day. Some people are going to forget their passwords and not have alternate emails set up and working. If they have phone numbers entered, then they don't need to contact support. (Not bothering to touch security questions, as I've already mentioned, they're not suitable for, or used by any competent company for password reset in the first place.)