
Stalked by an online supermarket that wants a 'relationship' - ghosh
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/05/help-stalked-by-online-supermarket-wants-relationship
======
mrspeaker
"What we appear to have imported is overfamiliarity without good service".
Heck yes! I'm constantly impressed at the amount of interaction companies want
from me for the smallest transaction. It reminds me of a quote from the movie
"BASEketball":

"The athletes caring less about executing the play than planning the vulgar
grandstanding that inevitably followed even the most pedestrian of
accomplishments"

Hey, I used your online-fax service to send a fax that I need to do once,
ever, and now you're sending me notes from your CEO. Who likes this crap?!

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mattgreenrocks
My two favorite email marketing tropes:

1\. 'New' newsletters from ridiculous SV companies that have NO reason to
email otherwise. (Of course, I'm opted-in by default.) I always read it as:
"hi, we have retention problems so we're going to annoy customers because
business!" Buffer did this recently.

2\. Nag emails about ignoring previous feedback emails: "Please give us
feedback about your recent car maintenance!" No, I won't, especially since you
nagged! But I will report as spam.

My ultimate wish for email is that I'm left alone. You'd think companies would
realize that when they have my hotmail account.

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wpietri
Interesting! I was aware of parasocial relationships [1], but mainly as things
where media consumers feel like they know stars even though they don't.

This is in a way the reverse, where a brand pretends to know consumers in
hopes of generating social feelings. Creepy.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction)

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hengheng
From a sales perspective, this is something that companies will always try.
After all, if you weren't going to buy there again, so the supermarket has
nothing to lose. If, on the other hand, they were able to turn a single one-
time buyer into a regularly returning customer, then that's excellent
business. Of course they are not catering to you in 99% of cases, but 1%
return rate will be enough with this kind of sales.

(I am always amazed by the analogies between sales and dating.)

~~~
ivanca
Mmmm... you also need to subtract the PR damage this kind of behavior gives
them; and when not doing it actually becomes a feature by your competition
(Soon enough: "We never send you any mail! No anniversaries or spammy stuff
like that")

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _you also need to subtract the PR damage this kind of behavior gives them_

Which, right now, is essentially zero. It would be good if we could figure out
a way to vastly increase that damage, but I don't see how to do it while
staying legal.

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bananas
I get this all the time from Ocado. I stopped using them to be honest because
they're expensive and the quality of items is no better than ASDA who are a 5
min walk down the road from me. Plus I don't smash my own eggs EVERY FRIKKING
DELIVERY.

However, I get an email at least once every two days offering free this and
that despite opting out. Obviously they've cottoned onto the fact I'm shopping
elsewhere and keep sending begging emails and free delivery subscriptions to
get me to come back.

If a company needs a procmail filter line, they can go to hell.

~~~
davidgerard
I would strongly question that. We get our home delivery from Tesco or
Sainsbury (depending who's annoyed us least that month). We have tried Asda.
We will never do so again, given their _consistent blithering incompetence_ at
actual useful reliable home delivery. They're lovely about it, but I'd sorta
rather they didn't mess up in the first place. NEVER AGAIN.

(This is deliveries out of the Enfield warehouse to E17 - perhaps you have a
competent delivery area.)

~~~
bananas
I wouldn't use ASDA delivery - you're right: they are total incompetent. I
walk to the shop and carry it back.

To be fair I've tried Sainsburys, Tesco, Ocado and ASDA delivery. Ocado is the
best delivery by miles but it's overpriced and you get screwed around
Christmas time religiously even if you have a subscription delivery.

Decided to just do the shopping myself in the end. I'm spoiled with a
Waitrose, ASDA and Tesco within 0.5 mile of me but choose ASDA as to be honest
the meat is better than Waitrose. Tesco - everything is universally shit from
there.

I spend less, eat better and throw less away if I do the shopping myself a
couple of times a week. The only killer is Pringles on offer :)

~~~
davidgerard
Heh. It was shopping in ASDA in person that made me decide that five quid for
home delivery was WORTH EVERY PENNY. Also saves on dagger blades from wanting
to stab every annoying person in the shop on a Saturday afternoon.

We get monthly regular stuff 'cos neither of us wants to lug the stuff back.
10 bags of cat litter? No, you have a truck to bring me that with.

~~~
bananas
I go shopping at around midnight. There are less people to want to stab then
plus you get some crazy bargains. Got a whole 1.5Kg beef sirloin joint for £1
and had steak the next day :)

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spiritplumber
Try to actually treat it as a relationship and generate epic troll?

~~~
blueskin_
Restraining order, anyone?

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mathattack
_Does this kind of harrassment-marketing really work?_

Until someone creates a payer based email system, yes this will work because
the cost of spam is almost 0.

Now imagine a system where you get paid a penny (or dime?) for every email
sent to you by someone not on your contact list, with the only caveat that the
other person has to opt in to the same system. Could this take off and be the
gmail killer? (Perhaps you could even allow email from approved non-members)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Unfortunately, no. Obligatory reading:

[http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt](http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt)

~~~
dllthomas
The below assumes the worst case, some of these will be mutually exclusive
(hit by different potential implementations).

    
    
        Your post advocates a
        
        (0) technical
        
        approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it
        won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular
        idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to
        state before a bad federal law was passed.)
        
        (1) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
        (2) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
        (3) Users of email will not put up with it
        (4) Microsoft will not put up with it
        (5) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
        (6) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate
            potential employers
        
        Specifically, your plan fails to account for
        
        (7) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
        (8) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
        (9) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
        (10) Extreme profitability of spam
        (11) Outlook
        
        and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
        
        (12) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
            been shown practical
    
        (13) Whitelists suck
        (14) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
        (15) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
        (16) Sending email should be free
        

That said, a lot of these can clearly be designed around. I think 12 is the
most significant point, though everything fails to work until it works.
Everyone should feel free to dig into particular points below. It may well be
intractable, but snarky posts from before bitcoin don't demonstrate that.

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coldcode
The worst is politicians that buy your email from somewhere and then send you
personalized emails that "support my rights" and then proceed to tell me what
they should be. Woe unto anyone that uses a real email address for anything
these days.

~~~
ghswa
Even worse when it's not even a politician from your own country. I'm looking
at you Rand Paul.

