Surely these can't be unconnected? Can anyone shed any light on what's happening here behind the scenes?
This could be an attack on national security, after all, Greggs sausage rolls are the fuel that runs the UK police forces, much like donuts in the US ;)
Being British is about driving a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then traveling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV.
All while being suspicious of foreigners.
They had a _lot_ of contractors, some independent based in the UK, some contracts with companies with a local presence who would work from the office alongside us, and some in India.
All were equally shit at worst, with only the independent contractors proving the exception on occasion.
I recall being stuck with “senior” colleagues who couldn’t manage to upgrade a dependency even while being handheld.
[0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/01/30/future-factory/
It's a layer 8 problem. Human political expectations of technology are outpacing the engineering reality. Over the past two decades overselling of "utopias" mixed with professional management arrogance and ignoring engineers, experts and what people actually want.
That, plus a mixture of crony contracts and bad project management.
We've ended up with over-complex systems that we don't have the human capacity or money to maintain and secure.
A telling remark by a Labour politician to the question "What is the greatest concern about a 'cashless economy' was "Making sure people are not left behind".
In other words, we're forcing this on people whether they want it or not, and whether it works or not. The idea that there might be "risks" or necessary safeguards was simply not conceivable.
That's what happened with the Post Office Horizon system and it's what's happening with other new systems pushed out "for our own good"
That's not a remark against technology or modernisation, it's a criticism of bloody-minded recklessness and anti-democratic hubris.
Good technology requires care. We talk about it a lot here [0].
> That, plus a mixture of crony contracts and bad project management.
> We've ended up with over-complex systems that we don't have the human capacity or money to maintain and secure.
That is a LOT of VERY sweeping statements to a pretty specific question it seems of payment processors, can you give some examples of what you're talking about ?
PLease see the podcast linked above where we have spent many hours researching, analysing, writing and presenting on specific cases. In episodes to come we're working on joining the dots, finding common factors in these cases. Enjoy, and please give feedback if you feel able.
It they all shut down because of "a payment system", then a simple explanation would be a failure of... the same payment system that they all happen to use ?
(It's not like Greggs is going to fully develop a payment system in house without relying on any infra, I suppose ?)
Greggs: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/20/greggs-shop...
The Sainsbury's and Tesco ones happened on the same day (last Saturday), but the scale was very different. Sainsbury's were unable to take card payments nationwide. My local one said it was due to the internet connection in their store not working. It also affected planned deliveries, likely because the scanners they use to fetch and pick the orders didn't have a connection.
Sainsbury's blamed this on a botched "software update".
Greggs happened today and was card payment related but doesn't seem to be nationwide (I've not been to one today so not 100% sure if that's true).
