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#Association Management Software
findjoosoftware · 7 months
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Navigating the World of Online Payment Processing
The world of commerce has undergone a remarkable transformation with the rise of e-commerce, and at the heart of this evolution is online payment processing. From purchasing products and services online to managing subscriptions and making digital donations, online payment processing has become an integral part of our daily lives. In this comprehensive guide, we will delve into the intricacies of online payment processing, exploring its significance, the key players in the industry, security measures, and the latest trends shaping the future of digital payments.
The Significance of Online Payment Processing
Online payment processing is the engine driving e-commerce and digital transactions. Its importance extends far beyond the convenience it offers. Here are some of the key reasons why online payment processing is crucial:
Global Reach: It enables businesses to reach customers worldwide, breaking down geographical barriers and expanding their customer base.
Convenience: Customers can make payments and purchases from the comfort of their homes or on the go, making the shopping experience more convenient.
Security: Secure payment processing ensures that sensitive financial information is protected, reducing the risk of fraud and unauthorized access.
Efficiency: The automation of payment processing streamlines financial transactions, reducing manual labor and processing times.
Business Growth: Online payment processing supports the growth of online businesses, enabling them to scale their operations and reach new markets.
Diverse Payment Options: It offers a wide range of payment methods, allowing customers to choose the option that best suits their preferences and needs.
The Key Players in Online Payment Processing
Online payment processing involves several key players, each with distinct roles and responsibilities. Understanding these players is crucial to grasp the intricacies of the payment ecosystem:
1. Merchants
Merchants are businesses or individuals who sell products or services online. They integrate payment gateways into their websites or applications to accept payments from customers.
2. Payment Gateways
Payment gateways are intermediaries that facilitate the transfer of payment data between the merchant and the financial institution. They verify the transaction, handle the encryption of data, and ensure that the payment is securely processed.
3. Acquiring Banks
Acquiring banks, also known as merchant banks, are financial institutions that work with merchants to provide them with the necessary accounts and tools for accepting payments. They play a critical role in authorizing and settling transactions.
4. Issuing Banks
Issuing banks are the financial institutions that issue credit and debit cards to consumers. They are responsible for authorizing transactions initiated by cardholders and ensuring there are sufficient funds for the purchase.
5. Card Networks
Card networks, such as Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, establish the rules and infrastructure that govern payment card transactions. They facilitate communication between acquiring and issuing banks.
6. Customers
Customers are the individuals or businesses making purchases or payments online. They provide their payment information to complete transactions.
Ensuring Security in Online Payment Processing
Security is a paramount concern in online payment processing. As the digital landscape evolves, so do the threats to security. Here are some of the key security measures and technologies in place to safeguard online transactions:
1. Data Encryption
Data encryption ensures that sensitive payment information, such as credit card numbers, remains secure during transmission. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption is a common technology used to protect data.
2. Tokenization
Tokenization replaces sensitive card data with tokens, which are useless to cybercriminals if intercepted. This adds an extra layer of security to payment processing.
3. Two-Factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication (2FA) requires customers to provide additional verification, such as a one-time code sent to their mobile device, to complete a transaction.
4. Fraud Detection
Advanced fraud detection systems use artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze transaction data in real-time and identify potentially fraudulent activities.
5. Regular Updates
Payment processing systems should be regularly updated to patch vulnerabilities and ensure that they are up to date with the latest security standards.
6. Compliance with Regulations
Adhering to industry and regional regulations, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), is essential to maintain security.
Trends Shaping the Future of Online Payment Processing
Online payment processing is an ever-evolving field. Several trends are shaping the future of digital payments:
1. Contactless Payments
Contactless payments, made through mobile wallets and near-field communication (NFC) technology, have gained popularity due to their speed and convenience. The use of smartphones for payments is on the rise.
2. Biometric Authentication
Biometric authentication, such as fingerprint and facial recognition, is increasingly used for secure and convenient payment authorization.
3. Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are gaining acceptance as a means of payment, offering fast and borderless transactions.
4. In-App Payments
In-app payments within mobile applications provide a seamless purchasing experience for users, making it easier to complete transactions without leaving the app.
5. Enhanced Security Measures
Continual advancements in security measures, including machine learning-based fraud detection and risk analysis, will help reduce the risk of fraudulent transactions.
6. Cross-Border Payments
As businesses expand globally, cross-border payment solutions are becoming more vital. Payment processors are adapting to accommodate international transactions and currencies.
7. Payment Integration
E-commerce platforms and online businesses are increasingly integrating payment solutions directly into their platforms, streamlining the payment process for customers.
Choosing the Right Online Payment Processing Solution
Selecting the right online payment processing solution is crucial for businesses. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind:
1. Integration
Choose a payment solution that seamlessly integrates with your e-commerce platform or website. This ensures a smooth checkout experience for your customers.
2. Security
Security
is a non-negotiable aspect of online payment processing. Ensure that the solution you choose complies with industry standards, such as PCI DSS, and offers robust encryption and fraud prevention measures.
3. Payment Options
Consider the range of payment options the solution supports. The more options you provide, the more accessible your business will be to a broader customer base.
4. Scalability
Opt for a payment processing solution that can scale with your business. As your business grows, the payment solution should be able to handle increased transaction volumes.
5. Reporting and Analytics
Access to reporting and analytics tools can provide valuable insights into customer behavior, transaction trends, and financial performance. Choose a solution that offers comprehensive reporting capabilities.
6. Customer Support
A responsive customer support team can be invaluable in resolving issues quickly and ensuring that your payment processing runs smoothly. Consider the quality of customer support provided by the payment solution.
7. Costs and Fees
Different payment processors may have varying fee structures. Ensure that you understand the pricing model and any additional fees associated with the solution. Consider how the costs align with your business's budget.
8. Reputation
Research the reputation of the payment processing solution. Read reviews, ask for recommendations, and assess its track record in terms of reliability and security.
The Evolution of Online Payment Processing
Online payment processing has come a long way from its early days, and its journey continues. As technology advances and consumer preferences shift, the landscape of digital payments will keep evolving. Businesses that embrace the latest trends and invest in secure and convenient payment solutions are better positioned to thrive in the digital age.
The significance of online payment processing in today's world cannot be overstated. It has revolutionized the way we shop, transact, and do business, making life more convenient for consumers and enabling the growth of countless online enterprises. As we look to the future, the trends in online payment processing, from contactless payments to cryptocurrency, will shape the way we make payments and conduct financial transactions. By staying informed, adapting to these trends, and choosing the right payment processing solution, businesses can ensure a seamless and secure payment experience for their customers and position themselves for success in the evolving digital economy.
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easyhoa · 10 months
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https://easyhoa123.blogspot.com/2023/07/transform-condo-association-management.html
In the world of self-managed condo association software, staying organized and efficient is paramount to ensuring a thriving community. Whether you're a small self-managed association or a larger homeowners' association (HOA), the challenges of maintaining seamless operations, effective communication, and streamlined financial management can sometimes feel overwhelming. That's where Easy HOA, the cutting-edge self-managed condo association software and HOA website solution, comes into play.
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i4technolab · 1 year
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An association management software is a tool that helps manage information. It is an all-in-one platform suitable for busy managers. AMS is a single sign-on with a modern look that is mobile-friendly.
One of the functions of membership management software is to collect and manage data. Members use a web-based portal to fill in information like names and contact details.
Other information includes financial records like contributions or transaction history. The system collects such information and stores them. Data is in a secure database management system.
Managers can process this raw data and produce information for decision-making. Such decisions help improve operations in an organization and provide a better experience.
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jamboassociation · 1 year
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Best Association Management Software (AMS) | App and Platform for associations and communities- Jambo
Jambo is an association management platform and software that allows associations and communities to collaborate, communicate & network better
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webmarketingar · 2 years
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Automating Your Community Resale Documents
ReadyRESALE offers your management company or community association a new streamlined approach to your community document delivery with our web-based software application. Take your management company or association to the next level by enabling title companies, lenders, and real estate agents to request necessary documentation required for a property closing or refinancing in a secure online environment, right from your website. ReadyRESALE automatically pulls accounting data into these closing documents, thus providing you with less of a workload and more time in the day to focus on other important aspects of your business. Our software features Tiered RUSH fee options, Flexible payment options, a Revenue and metrics dashboard, Customizable requestor information section, Order notifications, Shipment tracking. Plus, the ability to purchase Community Access Control Items such as pool passes, gate clickers, visitor passes, parking permits through your website and we integrate with industry leading accounting software. For more information on our Resale Document Solution and a demo visit http://bit.ly/resaledocs and get started today.
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mitsdedistance · 3 months
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memberconnect · 1 year
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maplelms · 1 year
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thestrangertime · 1 year
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The Search Engine For Real Estate Investors
The Search Engine For Real Estate Investors
The Search Engine For Real Estate Investors Photo by Alex Staudinger Locate The Best Realty Deals In Your Market Automated Property Baits Any Device runs lightning-fast searches of its whole network of freely readily available home noting websites for the very best handle your market that fulfills your spending requirements. Laser-Target The Bargains You Want Look for buildings by any type of…
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rudrjobdesk · 2 years
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NexWave Talent Management Solutions Pvt Ltd | Associate Software Testing Engineer | Hyderabad,Mumbai and Pune | jobs
NexWave Talent Management Solutions Pvt Ltd | Associate Software Testing Engineer | Hyderabad,Mumbai and Pune | jobs
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jamboassociation · 2 years
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Jambo offers association management software (AMS), an all-in-one management tool comprising of discussions, event ticketing, website builder, membership management, voting, polls and more. Jambo has just the right features to make your community management a breeze. We have features to take care of almost all your manual tasks so that you can focus on providing your community a better experience and leave the mundane tasks to us.
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webmarketingar · 21 days
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Learn about AssociationREADY's Software Integration Partners.
AssociationREADY is excited to announce its robust accounting integration with the foremost specialized community association management account platforms across the nation. We take pride in being the leading provider, assisting property management companies in efficiently handling Resale Disclosures & Packages, Payoffs for Loans or Title Transfers, supplying lenders with essential Lender Questionnaires and Estoppels, and furnishing vital Condo or HOA Association documents. Our valued partnerships with Caliber, CINC Systems, and TOPS are instrumental in our commitment to delivering powerful and cost-effective custom solutions to our clients. Should you wish to explore how AssociationREADY can seamlessly integrate with your current provider or desire an introduction to any of these exceptional integration partners, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at https://bit.ly/2KVI0Yu
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ecoursenotepok · 2 years
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Project Management and Business Templates Plans Tools and Forms
Project Management and Business Templates Plans Tools and Forms
Project Management and Business Templates Plans Tools and Forms Photo by Nana Smirnova Project Management and Business Templates Plans Tools and Forms 9000+ Documents to Cover Any Situation With the most complete library of document templates available today, PMMilestone will cover all your writing needs Suits all industries People in all industries around the world, use it to manage projects…
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7-eleven-india-gsc · 8 months
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Transforming Retail
We are strong advocates of offering complete skill set in the field of retail technology. In the continually changing landscape of today, having a diverse array of skills is crucial for success. We provide a wide range of expertise for our employees.
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In defense of bureaucratic competence
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Sure, sometimes it really does make sense to do your own research. There's times when you really do need to take personal responsibility for the way things are going. But there's limits. We live in a highly technical world, in which hundreds of esoteric, potentially lethal factors impinge on your life every day.
You can't "do your own research" to figure out whether all that stuff is safe and sound. Sure, you might be able to figure out whether a contractor's assurances about a new steel joist for your ceiling are credible, but after you do that, are you also going to independently audit the software in your car's antilock brakes?
How about the nutritional claims on your food and the sanitary conditions in the industrial kitchen it came out of? If those turn out to be inadequate, are you going to be able to validate the medical advice you get in the ER when you show up at 3AM with cholera? While you're trying to figure out the #HIPAAWaiver they stuck in your hand on the way in?
40 years ago, Ronald Reagan declared war on "the administrative state," and "government bureaucrats" have been the favored bogeyman of the American right ever since. Even if Steve Bannon hasn't managed to get you to froth about the "Deep State," there's a good chance that you've griped about red tape from time to time.
Not without reason, mind you. The fact that the government can make good rules doesn't mean it will. When we redid our kitchen this year, the city inspector added a bunch of arbitrary electrical outlets to the contractor's plans in places where neither we, nor any future owner, will every need them.
But the answer to bad regulation isn't no regulation. During the same kitchen reno, our contractor discovered that at some earlier time, someone had installed our kitchen windows without the accompanying vapor-barriers. In the decades since, the entire structure of our kitchen walls had rotted out. Not only was the entire front of our house one good earthquake away from collapsing – there were two half rotted verticals supporting the whole thing – but replacing the rotted walls added more than $10k to the project.
In other words, the problem isn't too much regulation, it's the wrong regulation. I want our city inspectors to make sure that contractors install vapor barriers, but to not demand superfluous electrical outlets.
Which raises the question: where do regulations come from? How do we get them right?
Regulation is, first and foremost, a truth-seeking exercise. There will never be one obvious answer to any sufficiently technical question. "Should this window have a vapor barrier?" is actually a complex question, needing to account for different window designs, different kinds of barriers, etc.
To make a regulation, regulators ask experts to weigh in. At the federal level, expert agencies like the DoT or the FCC or HHS will hold a "Notice of Inquiry," which is a way to say, "Hey, should we do something about this? If so, what should we do?"
Anyone can weigh in on these: independent technical experts, academics, large companies, lobbyists, industry associations, members of the public, hobbyist groups, and swivel-eyed loons. This produces a record from which the regulator crafts a draft regulation, which is published in something called a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking."
The NPRM process looks a lot like the NOI process: the regulator publishes the rule, the public weighs in for a couple of rounds of comments, and the regulator then makes the rule (this is the federal process; state regulation and local ordinances vary, but they follow a similar template of collecting info, making a proposal, collecting feedback and finalizing the proposal).
These truth-seeking exercises need good input. Even very competent regulators won't know everything, and even the strongest theoretical foundation needs some evidence from the field. It's one thing to say, "Here's how your antilock braking software should work," but you also need to hear from mechanics who service cars, manufacturers, infosec specialists and drivers.
These people will disagree with each other, for good reasons and for bad ones. Some will be sincere but wrong. Some will want to make sure that their products or services are required – or that their competitors' products and services are prohibited.
It's the regulator's job to sort through these claims. But they don't have to go it alone: in an ideal world, the wrong people will be corrected by other parties in the docket, who will back up their claims with evidence.
So when the FCC proposes a Net Neutrality rule, the monopoly telcos and cable operators will pile in and insist that this is technically impossible, that there is no way to operate a functional ISP if the network management can't discriminate against traffic that is less profitable to the carrier. Now, this unity of perspective might reflect a bedrock truth ("Net Neutrality can't work") or a monopolists' convenient lie ("Net Neutrality is less profitable for us").
In a competitive market, there'd be lots of counterclaims with evidence from rivals: "Of course Net Neutrality is feasible, and here are our server logs to prove it!" But in a monopolized markets, those counterclaims come from micro-scale ISPs, or academics, or activists, or subscribers. These counterclaims are easy to dismiss ("what do you know about supporting 100 million users?"). That's doubly true when the regulator is motivated to give the monopolists what they want – either because they are hoping for a job in the industry after they quit government service, or because they came out of industry and plan to go back to it.
To make things worse, when an industry is heavily concentrated, it's easy for members of the ruling cartel – and their backers in government – to claim that the only people who truly understand the industry are its top insiders. Seen in that light, putting an industry veteran in charge of the industry's regulator isn't corrupt – it's sensible.
All of this leads to regulatory capture – when a regulator starts defending an industry from the public interest, instead of defending the public from the industry. The term "regulatory capture" has a checkered history. It comes out of a bizarre, far-right Chicago School ideology called "Public Choice Theory," whose goal is to eliminate regulation, not fix it.
In Public Choice Theory, the biggest companies in an industry have the strongest interest in capturing the regulator, and they will work harder – and have more resources – than anyone else, be they members of the public, workers, or smaller rivals. This inevitably leads to capture, where the state becomes an arm of the dominant companies, wielded by them to prevent competition:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/
This is regulatory nihilism. It supposes that the only reason you weren't killed by your dinner, or your antilock brakes, or your collapsing roof, is that you just got lucky – and not because we have actual, good, sound regulations that use evidence to protect us from the endless lethal risks we face. These nihilists suppose that making good regulation is either a myth – like ancient Egyptian sorcery – or a lost art – like the secret to embalming Pharaohs.
But it's clearly possible to make good regulations – especially if you don't allow companies to form monopolies or cartels. What's more, failing to make public regulations isn't the same as getting rid of regulation. In the absence of public regulation, we get private regulation, run by companies themselves.
Think of Amazon. For decades, the DoJ and FTC sat idly by while Amazon assembled and fortified its monopoly. Today, Amazon is the de facto e-commerce regulator. The company charges its independent sellers 45-51% in junk fees to sell on the platform, including $31b/year in "advertising" to determine who gets top billing in your searches. Vendors raise their Amazon prices in order to stay profitable in the face of these massive fees, and if they don't raise their prices at every other store and site, Amazon downranks them to oblivion, putting them out of business.
This is the crux of the FTC's case against Amazon: that they are picking winners and setting prices across the entire economy, including at every other retailer:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos
The same is true for Google/Facebook, who decide which news and views you encounter; for Apple/Google, who decide which apps you can use, and so on. The choice is never "government regulation" or "no regulation" – it's always "government regulation" or "corporate regulation." You either live by rules made in public by democratically accountable bureaucrats, or rules made in private by shareholder-accountable executives.
You just can't solve this by "voting with your wallet." Think about the problem of robocalls. Nobody likes these spam calls, and worse, they're a vector for all kinds of fraud. Robocalls are mostly a problem with federation. The phone system is a network-of-networks, and your carrier is interconnected with carriers all over the world, sometimes through intermediaries that make it hard to know which network a call originates on.
Some of these carriers are spam-friendly. They make money by selling access to spammers and scammers. Others don't like spam, but they have lax or inadequate security measures to prevent robocalls. Others will simply be targets of opportunity: so large and well-resourced that they are irresistible to bad actors, who continuously probe their defenses and exploit overlooked flaws, which are quickly patched.
To stem the robocall tide, your phone company will have to block calls from bad actors, put sloppy or lazy carriers on notice to shape up or face blocks, and also tell the difference between good companies and bad ones.
There's no way you can figure this out on your own. How can you know whether your carrier is doing a good job at this? And even if your carrier wants to do this, only the largest, most powerful companies can manage it. Rogue carriers won't give a damn if some tiny micro-phone-company threatens them with a block if they don't shape up.
This is something that a large, powerful government agency is best suited to addressing. And thankfully, we have such an agency. Two years ago, the FCC demanded that phone companies submit plans for "robocall mitigation." Now, it's taking action:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/10/telcos-filed-blank-robocall-plans-with-fcc-and-got-away-with-it-for-2-years/
Specifically, the FCC has identified carriers – in the US and abroad – with deficient plans. Some of these plans are very deficient. National Cloud Communications of Texas sent the FCC a Windows Printer Test Page. Evernex (Pakistan) sent the FCC its "taxpayer profile inquiry" from a Pakistani state website. Viettel (Vietnam) sent in a slide presentation entitled "Making Smart Cities Vision a Reality." Canada's Humbolt VoIP sent an "indiscernible object." DomainerSuite submitted a blank sheet of paper scrawled with the word "NOTHING."
The FCC has now notified these carriers – and others with less egregious but still deficient submissions – that they have 14 days to fix this or they'll be cut off from the US telephone network.
This is a problem you don't fix with your wallet, but with your ballot. Effective, public-interest-motivated FCC regulators are a political choice. Trump appointed the cartoonishly evil Ajit Pai to run the FCC, and he oversaw a program of neglect and malice. Pai – a former Verizon lawyer – dismantled Net Neutrality after receiving millions of obviously fraudulent comments from stolen identities, lying about it, and then obstructing the NY Attorney General's investigation into the matter:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/31/and-drown-it/#starve-the-beast
The Biden administration has a much better FCC – though not as good as it could be, thanks to Biden hanging Gigi Sohn out to dry in the face of a homophobic smear campaign that ultimately led one of the best qualified nominees for FCC commissioner to walk away from the process:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/15/useful-idiotsuseful-idiots/#unrequited-love
Notwithstanding the tragic loss of Sohn's leadership in this vital agency, Biden's FCC – and its action on robocalls – illustrates the value of elections won with ballots, not wallets.
Self-regulation without state regulation inevitably devolves into farce. We're a quarter of a century into the commercial internet and the US still doesn't have a modern federal privacy law. The closest we've come is a disclosure rule, where companies can make up any policy they want, provided they describe it to you.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to cheat on this regulation. It's so simple, even a Meta lawyer can figure it out – which is why the Meta Quest VR headset has a privacy policy isn't merely awful, but long.
It will take you five hours to read the whole document and discover how badly you're being screwed. Go ahead, "do your own research":
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/annual-creep-o-meter/
The answer to bad regulation is good regulation, and the answer to incompetent regulators is competent ones. As Michael Lewis's Fifth Risk (published after Trump filled the administrative agencies with bootlickers, sociopaths and crooks) documented, these jobs demand competence:
https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/27/the-fifth-risk-michael-lewis-explains-how-the-deep-state-is-just-nerds-versus-grifters/
For example, Lewis describes how a Washington State nuclear waste facility created as part of the Manhattan Project endangers the Columbia River, the source of 8 million Americans' drinking water. The nuclear waste cleanup is projected to take 100 years and cost 100 billion dollars. With stakes that high, we need competent bureaucrats overseeing the job.
The hacky conservative jokes comparing every government agency to the DMV are not descriptive so much as prescriptive. By slashing funding, imposing miserable working conditions, and demonizing the people who show up for work anyway, neoliberals have chased away many good people, and hamstrung those who stayed.
One of the most inspiring parts of the Biden administration is the large number of extremely competent, extremely principled agency personnel he appointed, and the speed and competence they've brought to their roles, to the great benefit of the American public:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff
But leaders can only do so much – they also need staff. 40 years of attacks on US state capacity has left the administrative state in tatters, stretched paper-thin. In an excellent article, Noah Smith describes how a starveling American bureaucracy costs the American public a fortune:
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better-bureaucracy
Even stripped of people and expertise, the US government still needs to get stuff done, so it outsources to nonprofits and consultancies. These are the source of much of the expense and delay in public projects. Take NYC's Second Avenue subway, a notoriously overbudget and late subway extension – "the most expensive mile of subway ever built." Consultants amounted to 20% of its costs, double what France or Italy would have spent. The MTA used to employ 1,600 project managers. Now it has 124 of them, overseeing $20b worth of projects. They hand that money to consultants, and even if they have the expertise to oversee the consultants' spending, they are stretched too thin to do a good job of it:
https://slate.com/business/2023/02/subway-costs-us-europe-public-transit-funds.html
When a public agency lacks competence, it ends up costing the public more. States with highly expert Departments of Transport order better projects, which need fewer changes, which adds up to massive costs savings and superior roads:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4522676
Other gaps in US regulation are plugged by nonprofits and citizen groups. Environmental rules like NEPA rely on the public to identify and object to environmental risks in public projects, from solar plants to new apartment complexes. NEPA and its state equivalents empower private actors to sue developers to block projects, even if they satisfy all environmental regulations, leading to years of expensive delay.
The answer to this isn't to dismantle environmental regulations – it's to create a robust expert bureaucracy that can enforce them instead of relying on NIMBYs. This is called "ministerial approval" – when skilled government workers oversee environmental compliance. Predictably, NIMBYs hate ministerial approval.
Which is not to say that there aren't problems with trusting public enforcers to ensure that big companies are following the law. Regulatory capture is real, and the more concentrated an industry is, the greater the risk of capture. We are living in a moment of shocking market concentration, thanks to 40 years of under-regulation:
https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers
Remember that five-hour privacy policy for a Meta VR headset? One answer to these eye-glazing garbage novellas presented as "privacy policies" is to simply ban certain privacy-invading activities. That way, you can skip the policy, knowing that clicking "I agree" won't expose you to undue risk.
This is the approach that Bennett Cyphers and I argue for in our EFF white-paper, "Privacy Without Monopoly":
https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy
After all, even the companies that claim to be good for privacy aren't actually very good for privacy. Apple blocked Facebook from spying on iPhone owners, then sneakily turned on their own mass surveillance system, and lied about it:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar
But as the European experiment with the GDPR has shown, public administrators can't be trusted to have the final word on privacy, because of regulatory capture. Big Tech companies like Google, Apple and Facebook pretend to be headquartered in corporate crime havens like Ireland and Luxembourg, where the regulators decline to enforce the law:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town
It's only because of the GPDR has a private right of action – the right of individuals to sue to enforce their rights – that we're finally seeing the beginning of the end of commercial surveillance in Europe:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/07/americans-deserve-more-current-american-data-privacy-protection-act
It's true that NIMBYs can abuse private rights of action, bringing bad faith cases to slow or halt good projects. But just as the answer to bad regulations is good ones, so too is the answer to bad private rights of action good ones. SLAPP laws have shown us how to balance vexatious litigation with the public interest:
https://www.rcfp.org/resources/anti-slapp-laws/
We must get over our reflexive cynicism towards public administration. In my book The Internet Con, I lay out a set of public policy proposals for dismantling Big Tech and putting users back in charge of their digital lives:
https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con
The most common objection I've heard since publishing the book is, "Sure, Big Tech has enshittified everything great about the internet, but how can we trust the government to fix it?"
We've been conditioned to think that lawmakers are too old, too calcified and too corrupt, to grasp the technical nuances required to regulate the internet. But just because Congress isn't made up of computer scientists, it doesn't mean that they can't pass good laws relating to computers. Congress isn't full of microbiologists, but we still manage to have safe drinking water (most of the time).
You can't just "do the research" or "vote with your wallet" to fix the internet. Bad laws – like the DMCA, which bans most kinds of reverse engineering – can land you in prison just for reconfiguring your own devices to serve you, rather than the shareholders of the companies that made them. You can't fix that yourself – you need a responsive, good, expert, capable government to fix it.
We can have that kind of government. It'll take some doing, because these questions are intrinsically hard to get right even without monopolies trying to capture their regulators. Even a president as flawed as Biden can be pushed into nominating good administrative personnel and taking decisive, progressive action:
https://doctorow.medium.com/joe-biden-is-headed-to-a-uaw-picket-line-in-detroit-f80bd0b372ab?sk=f3abdfd3f26d2f615ad9d2f1839bcc07
Biden may not be doing enough to suit your taste. I'm certainly furious with aspects of his presidency. The point isn't to lionize Biden – it's to point out that even very flawed leaders can be pushed into producing benefit for the American people. Think of how much more we can get if we don't give up on politics but instead demand even better leaders.
My next novel is The Lost Cause, coming out on November 14. It's about a generation of people who've grown up under good government – a historically unprecedented presidency that has passed the laws and made the policies we'll need to save our species and planet from the climate emergency:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause
The action opens after the pendulum has swung back, with a new far-right presidency and an insurgency led by white nationalist militias and their offshore backers – seagoing anarcho-capitalist billionaires.
In the book, these forces figure out how to turn good regulations against the people they were meant to help. They file hundreds of simultaneous environmental challenges to refugee housing projects across the country, blocking the infill building that is providing homes for the people whose homes have been burned up in wildfires, washed away in floods, or rendered uninhabitable by drought.
I don't want to spoil the book here, but it shows how the protagonists pursue a multipronged defense, mixing direct action, civil disobedience, mass protest, court challenges and political pressure to fight back. What they don't do is give up on state capacity. When the state is corrupted by wreckers, they claw back control, rather than giving up on the idea of a competent and benevolent public system.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis
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klapollo · 1 month
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some basic tips for getting a job in this horrible market
hi all -- long story short, as many of you know, i just finished a three+ month job search after being laid off. here's what i learned:
Your resume should be your accomplishments, not your tasks. When I started searching, my bullet points in my resume were things like "used x software" or "wrote x content." Your resume should be you bragging. EX: "I used x software to turn around 100 deliverables a month," "I managed [x amount] sales associates and was named highest commission earner x months in a row." These don't have to be lifechanging things or massive projects -- any metric that demonstrates your capabilities well can do the job.
Make sure your resume is ATS optimized. Most jobs/companies use automated resume processing, and lots of great people get rejected this way. If you're getting rejection emails on Sunday morning or in the middle of the night, these are probably auto-rejections. ATS is the automatic system that sifts through resumes -- you can find free ATS-optimized templates online, I got min through resume.com. Do NOT use fancy graphics, headshots, any extraneous info. Use sites like jobscan to see if your resume is able to be parsed by an auto resume processor.
Use numbers. Make sure your resume has lots of numbers indicating your skills. "I helped my franchise achieve X% of revenue growth," "I drove x amount of deliveries daily." Any impressive numerical amounts are useful. If your company is tight-lipped about numbers, go to press releases. Ex: an app I did a considerable about of work for generated a lot of money that my company disclosed, so I put down that i contributed to that revenue via my work.
Have a template cover letter. Cover letters can give you an advantage, but they're tedious. Take note of what qualities are most sought-after in your field/ideal role, and write a generic cover letter that applies to most of them. When applying, do minor tweaks such as including the company name or any unique qualifications. Be careful about typos and leaving in old tweaks!
Use the free month of LinkedIn Premium if you're on there. I got some results from cold DMing recruiters for jobs I was interested in, and Premium lets you do that freely. Remember to cancel at the end of the month!
If you're looking for remote work, here are some boards I used: Remote.co, Otta, Remote Rocketship, Swooped, Best Writing (writing-focused)
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