But they know their competitions are doing to adopt the same type of tech, so where are those customers going to go when they have no choice?

Companies have been fucking consumers since the beginning of time and consumers, time and time again, bend over and ask for more. Just look at all of the most successful companies in the world and ask yourself, are they constantly trying to deliver the amazing service possible for their customers or are they trying to fuck them at every available opportunity?

I will bring this up again like I did my last post concerning Hertz.

While I was in Albuquerque, NM getting off the Amtrak train, I reserved our rental car from their website and went to the nonexistent address with no phone number or anything. After half an hour we called another Hertz and they basically told us to piss off and call the location we booked the car. I have few brands that I boycott and now they will be Nestle products (and sub companies) and Hertz.

And I will take this as my cue to mention that Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty are all the same company and they will each of them take every opportunity possible to fuck you.

They're all rather shitty tbh, with some regional variation

And the company that charges "gas refueling fees" for a fully charged EV.

thestreet.com

(www.thestreet.com)

I feel like the go to strategy would be to offer incredible service at first, then once you are big enough to force out competitors and the like, then you start fucking the consumer

Just spit balling here, but they probably tune the AI for different thresholds between return and rent out so that they can rake in the damage fees for things that "weren't there" during the first AI scan.

And they will totally provide those to you, no problem.

I'm not sure how you can make the points you make, and still call it a "generally brilliant solution"

The entire point of this system - like anything a giant company like Hertz does - is not to be fair to the customer. The point is to screw the customer over to make money.

Not allowing human employees to challenge the incorrect AI decision is very intentional, because it defers your complaint to a later time when you have to phone customer support.

This means you no longer have the persuasion power of being there in person at the time of the assessment, with the car still there too, and means you have to muster the time and effort to call customer services - which they are hoping you won't bother doing. Even if you do call, CS hold all the cards at that point and can easily swerve you over the phone.

It's all part of the business strategy.

Okay so...in the rare event I need to rent a car, any suggestions on who to use that isn't Hertz and sister companies?

I use an app called GoMore in some places in Europe that allows you to rent cars from other peers. The rental process is cheaper and faster--everything is done through the app--and you avoid these shady corpo practices.

He's already done 3 that I know of

The word used for that strategy is usually "enshittification". It happens a lot after digital tech is introduced in a new sector.

Nestle products (and sub companies)

That's a tall order. And just to be clear, not saying we should just give up against those numbers. It's not an all-or-nothing situation.

The term AI itself is a shifting of goalposts. What was AI 50 years ago* is now AGI, so we can call this shit AI though it's nothing of the sort. And everybody's falling for the hype: governments, militaries, police forces, care providers, hospitals... not to speak of the insane amounts of energy & resources this wastes, and other highly problematic, erm, problems. What a fucking disaster.

If it wasn't for those huge caveats I'd be all for it. Use it for what it can do (which isn't all that much), research it. But don't fall for the shit some tech bro envisions for us.

* tbf fucking around with that term probably isn't a new thing either, and science itself is divided on how to define it.

SIXT and TURO. Maybe price out renting the big truck from Lowe's/home depot. Or a haul. Both might be cheaper than hertz/enterprise depending on your area.

Sixt is specifically called out as AI lying about damages in Germany.

I've had a lot of good recent experiences with Enterprise (in the US). There's some interesting services like Turo, but I can't bring myself to try it yet. Weirdly too personal being other people's cars.

Not many people today remember when Google was actually useful. Once upon a time.