December 27, 2013, 11:55 am 14 Comments
The Big Screwup
You know how it went. They made big promises: just go to the website, provide the information, and all will be well. What actually happened was nothing like that. It’s true that many, perhaps most people did in the end manage to get what they sought; but millions found themselves frustrated and angry. Was it a disaster? That depends on which anecdotes you choose to emphasize. Will it have long-run consequences? Too soon to tell.
Yes, the great online-shopping screwup of 2013 was an object lesson. Oh, wait — did you think I was talking about healthcare.gov?
So, in case you didn’t know, online shopping had a number of glitches this holiday season, with Amazon, for example, failing to make good on many supposedly guaranteed delivery dates — and as a result, quite a few Christmas presents weren’t there when the reindeer took off. The biggest bottleneck seems to have been UPS, which just didn’t provide enough capacity, but it wasn’t the only one. Can’t the private sector do anything right?
OK, we all understand that things happen, and that sometimes they go wrong — especially when you’re dealing with something new, like the rapid growth of online shopping. But as Alec MacGillis says, many pundits were quick to declare healthcare.gov’s problems evidence of the fundamental, irretrievable incompetence of government, and as an omen of Obamacare’s inevitable collapse. Strange to say, none of these people are making similar claims about UPS or Amazon.
I wonder why.
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