It’s rather amazing how many companies are connected to the internet, how many small companies exist only because they can sell online to augment their in store sales. Something like a consignment shop in Austin can rely on either their own website, or just an eBay account to augment their sales. The side effect of this has been the rise of professional IT support services to provide the much needed computer assistance that people need to continue their growth onto the web. It can sometimes be something simple; some people don’t feel comfortable enough with their computers to set up their own WIFI network. Sometimes it can be something as complex as setting up a server system.
At the end of the day though, an incredible amount of smaller businesses need IT support than ever before. Computers have gotten easier to manage, but we expect them to do so much more than we ever did, and as the price has declined we use them for more than we ever have. It used to not be feasible for a small company to have their own server, yet because IT support is more common and affordable, and the hardware required is cheaper more companies can afford to have their own server. The cheaper and more common computer services become the closer we move to the point of ubiquity. The thing is, even though computers have gotten simpler, we will always need IT support, just because of some fundamental realities about the nature of knowledge, education, and specialization.
No one knows everything. Even if we define “knows everything” as “knowing everything relevant to how they have to live their lives currently known by humanity as a whole”. In other words: people know how to drive a car but not how to repair one, they know how to use their sink but not how to build one. They might not understand the physics and science behind it. As much as people everywhere like to think of themselves as self reliant everyone is deeply embedded into a society and everyone relies on that society for support, cooperation, and help. This isn’t just true for people who live in a city like Austin, but even the people further out from the town will have to rely on other people for various things. We usually achieve this cooperation through mutually beneficial arrangements. IT support is a very pure case of a mutually beneficial service. When you pay for IT support you’re judging that your benefit from improved or repaired technical performance outweighs the cost of IT support, for the IT support company, the payout weighs their costs for the time.
