from Hacker News

In-person services may never operate strictly in-person again

by tzvsi on 5/24/20, 7:33 PM with 98 comments

• by lykr0n on 5/24/20, 8:50 PM

  I can't see myself wanting do continue doing anything remote when it's safe to stop.

  A lot of these articles are "we wern't doing this before COVID-19, but now we can't go out we're doing this remotely and therefor we're going to do this after the threat of COVID-19 disappears."

  I do like the increased options, but part of the reason I like to go visit my Therapist's office is that it's an office. I'm going to a different location at a set time to do something- doing it over Zoom is a good alternative to not having it but I feel like I get less out of it. In part because I live in a small apartment and there is a bunch of distraction, but also It feels impersonal.

  My guess is a lot of people will want the option to have virtual session/whatever, but few will take it consistently. I love have the option to work remotely when I want to, but I almost never do because I'm more productive in the office. It's nice option to have if I don't wake up on time.

• by jeffrallen on 5/24/20, 9:29 PM

  Remote everything sucks and I will stop doing it all as soon as possible. Humans need stories, and stories take place in sets. Seeing the entirety of your life through a window on your computer is not a life.

• by madengr on 5/24/20, 8:41 PM

  My kids have been having their music lessons (cello & viola) remotely since the quarantine. For the advanced student, I can see 50% of lessons workable as remote, but not more than that. My kid may switch to every other lesson remote (two lessons per week at 45 minutes each).

  For the beginner, it doesn’t work that well, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.

• by jakozaur on 5/24/20, 8:33 PM

  In Poland tele consultation in healthcare were rare. Now it is the norm including drug prescribtion and paid sick leave.

  Some consultations will go back, but a lot of changes will become the new norm.

• by crazygringo on 5/24/20, 9:37 PM

  It's interesting, therapy has some pretty unique properties where in-person vs. remote can be better depending on the person.

  For some people, having a literal physical "safe space" and an understanding human does wonders, and there's connection and understanding that seems like it might be hard to replicate virtually.

  But for other people, the distance that video or phone provides actually gives them the ability to open up more than in person -- precisely because it seems less personal and therefore less threatening or potentially judging. After all, it's just a disembodied voice or a floating head on a screen.

  So it's pretty good to have a mix of options.

• by Florin_Andrei on 5/24/20, 8:46 PM

  Wherein "never [...] again" means "for as long as we remember current events". Which may last a couple years, a couple decades, or anything in between.

• by kwhitefoot on 5/25/20, 8:43 AM

  So nail bars, hair dressers, physiotherapists, dog groomers, painters and decorators, gardeners, and loads more are suddenly going to be equipped with, or replaced by, remote controlled robots?

  Never mind that quite a few people actually enjoy being physically close to others.

  The world is bigger than the Globe and Mail seems to think.

• by ars on 5/24/20, 8:38 PM

  This seems like the biggest social transition since the always-connected cellphone/smartphone.

• by jagged-chisel on 5/25/20, 12:02 AM

  Does anyone offer face-to-face service over video chat? That's what I'd like to see.

• by mdoms on 5/24/20, 9:29 PM

  This is very strange to read from here in New Zealand, where life is fairly close to getting back to normal. I don't see any reason why our basic lifestyles should be permanently changed by this virus. As bad as things feel now, we will eventually get on top of the epidemic and in a few short years this period will be a distant memory.

  I'm not saying there won't be permanent changes - I believe this is a catalyst that will make remote working the norm for many industries, including my own. But I have been hearing, for example, American podcast hosts saying they may never step inside a restaurant again (this was on The Argument, and all three hosts agreed) or people claiming that the tourism industry is permanently neutered. I just don't see human behaviours changing so dramatically, and I don't see any reason why we should be more afraid of Coronavirus in 10 years than we are of Polio today.

• by SpicyLemonZest on 5/24/20, 8:15 PM

  May never operate strictly in person again, was the original title. I guess I'll give the benefit of the doubt that it was an honest mistake, but it's a mistake that vastly changes the meaning of the headline.

• by dang on 5/24/20, 9:49 PM

  This submission provided a fun example of title editing. The article title exceeds HN's 80 char limit, so had to be changed. The submitted title was "Industries that provided in-person services may never operate in-person again", which is not bad, but it's a bit misleading. The qualifier "strictly" is important, because without it you get kind of the opposite of what the article is actually saying, which is more along the lines of this quote: "You’re going to still see your doctor, but now you’ll be adjunctively cared for virtually as well"

  It's a subtle distinction, but it's consistently surprising how small nuances in titles produce widely divergent discussions. A comment like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23294773, to take an obvious example, is a reflexive objection to the submitted title ("may never operate in-person again") but the word "strictly" defangs that objection in advance. There are other comments in this thread that you can tell were mostly reacting to the submitted title, too, since they're arguing with something it said, rather than what the article says.

  Why this is fun: it turns out that you can take a strict substring of the article title (in this case a tail) which solves the problem perfectly. That is my favorite category of title-shortening. Often the substring isn't obvious at first and you get a satisfying click when you realize it works.

• by ttul on 5/24/20, 9:06 PM

  Consider that there may never be an effective vaccine. It may take a decade for enough people to obtain some level of immunity or for the virus to mutate to a less dangerous form.

• by booleandilemma on 5/24/20, 9:13 PM

  I know this isn't the popular opinion, but aren't we blowing the virus out of proportion a bit?

  Don't something like 20-25% of all New Yorkers already have antibodies? Doesn't that show the virus isn't that dangerous? The body count would be in the millions by now.

• by narrator on 5/24/20, 9:04 PM

  So we're all going to learn to cut our own hair and pull our own teeth?

• by LockAndLol on 5/24/20, 9:04 PM

  > That being said, my whole team, myself included, are noticing that as we continue to provide Zoom sessions we’re getting better and better client sessions; we’re having breakthroughs all the time now.

  Excuse me, but Zoom? How is that still allowed in healthcare? Are all privacy issues resolved?