Seconding this. My experience with the DMV has always been pleasant. I’ve also recently had to deal several times with the Social Security Administration, which impressed me with how efficiently their offices are run (the personnel were polite and helpful as well). I’ve had experiences dealing with other government (federal, state, and local) organizations as well, and cannot easily recall anything I might reasonably complain about.
On the other hand, private companies are, routinely, absolutely horrific to deal with. Cablevision (now Altice) might be the single worst company I have ever had the profound displeasure of interacting with—their customer service practices are, very obviously (and confirmed by their own custserv reps) designed to mislead and screw over the customer. Capital One (the banking company) does give them a run for their money, though. I’ve heard similar horror stories about Comcast. Many others (like Citibank or Samsung) are simply bad, in a way that doesn’t quite rise to “horrific” but which no sane person tolerates if they have a choice in the matter.
One might speculate that, while government service organizations lack the profit incentive to improve (though they may have other incentives!), they don’t have any particular incentive to do anything particularly bad, either; whereas private monopolies have every incentive to wring as much money out of their captive customer base as they can, and no incentive not to do so (much less to improve customer service). But, speculations about causes aside, the facts on the ground are clear.
I think “private monopolies are worse than government ones” is probably true in my experience as well. Although some of this is the subjective experience of having to pay money to be treated badly.
I think this makes me believe more strongly in competition as the main reason why the USPS is comparatively well-run.
Edit:
I would still expect private monopolies to be run more cost-efficiently than government ones. Although I’m not sure about cases like utilities where their profits are directly tied to their costs by government regulations.
“subjective experience of having to pay money to be treated badly”
Is this perhaps a bias view? I’m thinking about the reactions (I think this was documented but don’t have links to provide) to airline that were pricing for bags and, I think. even meals. This actually made it cheaper for many to fly but everyone hated having the line item pricing model compared to the bundled (and so largely hidden) pricing model.
To be honest, I’m not even sure I know how to price any consumption of public service beyond the directly observable but will not include portion of my tax paid in (though I suppose I could figure out something there).
Seconding this. My experience with the DMV has always been pleasant. I’ve also recently had to deal several times with the Social Security Administration, which impressed me with how efficiently their offices are run (the personnel were polite and helpful as well). I’ve had experiences dealing with other government (federal, state, and local) organizations as well, and cannot easily recall anything I might reasonably complain about.
On the other hand, private companies are, routinely, absolutely horrific to deal with. Cablevision (now Altice) might be the single worst company I have ever had the profound displeasure of interacting with—their customer service practices are, very obviously (and confirmed by their own custserv reps) designed to mislead and screw over the customer. Capital One (the banking company) does give them a run for their money, though. I’ve heard similar horror stories about Comcast. Many others (like Citibank or Samsung) are simply bad, in a way that doesn’t quite rise to “horrific” but which no sane person tolerates if they have a choice in the matter.
One might speculate that, while government service organizations lack the profit incentive to improve (though they may have other incentives!), they don’t have any particular incentive to do anything particularly bad, either; whereas private monopolies have every incentive to wring as much money out of their captive customer base as they can, and no incentive not to do so (much less to improve customer service). But, speculations about causes aside, the facts on the ground are clear.
I think “private monopolies are worse than government ones” is probably true in my experience as well. Although some of this is the subjective experience of having to pay money to be treated badly.
I think this makes me believe more strongly in competition as the main reason why the USPS is comparatively well-run.
Edit:
I would still expect private monopolies to be run more cost-efficiently than government ones. Although I’m not sure about cases like utilities where their profits are directly tied to their costs by government regulations.
“subjective experience of having to pay money to be treated badly”
Is this perhaps a bias view? I’m thinking about the reactions (I think this was documented but don’t have links to provide) to airline that were pricing for bags and, I think. even meals. This actually made it cheaper for many to fly but everyone hated having the line item pricing model compared to the bundled (and so largely hidden) pricing model.
To be honest, I’m not even sure I know how to price any consumption of public service beyond the directly observable but will not include portion of my tax paid in (though I suppose I could figure out something there).