Bad Behavior

Technology has a tendency to attract bad behavior. We do our best to minimize affiliation with bad behavior companies as they aren't the type of customers or vendors we'd consider equals. In our experience, producing a healthy, productive, successful relationship with companies that exhibit bad behavior is an up hill battle that none of us have time for.

Bad behavior takes a number of forms, but typically what we see in technology is fraudulent, dishonest, or intentionally cloaked behavior with an intent to hide process details. Many times this is a lack of education and just plain old ignorance, but also at times it's intentional as the technology companies and produce drastic wealth by offloading burdens onto their clients or other 3rd parties, instead of having to pay for them.

Examples of Bad Behavior

Outsourcing technical support services to non-native speaking countries.

When a technology company outsources technical support services to non-native speakers, the technical support services become considerably more frustrating and time consuming to the end user. This action passes the burden of interpretation and time consumption onto the end user in a cost they never asked to pay for but are now required to.

Unclear Mail Filtration

Mail service providers which do not clearly explain their mail filtration process, passing the burden of diagnosis and repair onto the receiving party. Typically found in free-mail providers which waste countless hours of everyones lives because they are opaque about their spam filtration processes.

Companies offering a service, typically 'free', but using this ease of access to secretly perform alternative actions hidden in their Terms of Service or Acceptable Use Policy.

Largely found in both social media & free-mail providers.

Companies that lock you into huge discounts with multi-year terms when they are taking nearly zero risk for doing so.

Mostly found in bulk web hosting providers.

Search engines that nag you to log-in.

These companies make tremendous income from advertisers, but then harass the individuals that provide them the profit.

Oversubscribed Service Providers

People just want what is on the tin, though tech seems to largely oversubscribe everything to promise the best rates and race to the bottom in quality.

Security companies running large block IP scans for indexing purposes to later sell back to you or others as 'security analysis'.

This is a cost incurred by the end user, a cost that was never asked for.

Early adoption of products to capitalize on buzzwords and target peoples Fear of Missing Out.

By definition the examples of 'Buzz Words' will change with time, but two that aren't likely to be fade any time soon: "AI", and Crypto (including NFT/Block Chain).

Conviction without Proof.

This one is oddly common in this field, and reasonably common in American society it seems. Technology is complex, and when things break it's very difficult to find a person or group of people that have all the answers.

We've experienced plenty of companies without the answer to a problem have a tendency to pass blame without proof. We find this to be unproductive, and largely indicative of lack of education in a field. Find the answer, and maybe just say "I don't know." until you do.

What can we do to help prevent bad behavior?

Don't support bad behavior by using your pocket book!

If you utilize these companies, find alternative solutions that aren't promoting or participating in bad behavior. If a free-mail provider is terrible at their junk filtration process, maybe use a different provider when you are looking for commercial solutions. If a company outsources technical support services out of country, possibly consider another solution when it's time to purchase or move on.

When a client doesn't pay their invoice habitually, consider asking them to use a different service provider.

Replace vendors and clients with those that behave well.

Do your best to become educated in your fields of service, and surround yourself with people and companies that don't promote this behavior.