Government websites are notoriously terrible. Anyone who's ever had to update their vehicle registration, file their taxes, or literally do ANYTHING federally related online has seen that in the last three decades, there have been no changes made to website design, speed, and quality. In an age where technology is changing every 5 minutes, it's infuriating to have to schedule an in-person appointment, wasting a precious sick day, to stand in line at the DMV under fluorescent lights and stinky stale air, while you arbitrarily wait for your number to be called. Look familiar?
Recently, we have been surprised and baffled by the successes of federal websites in the last few months and the White House is not wasting an opportunity to brag about it. Their student debt relief website has crushed it the last few months, handling huge influxes of traffic, managing applications in an easy, fast way, and ensuring that everyone who wanted to apply for debt relief had the option to do so online. Wow, is this what modernity looks like?
You'd think that the private sector, businesses and individuals who literally pay professionals to build and manage their websites, would be able to at least keep up with the competition. WRONG. Taylor Swift, one of the world's most famous and affluent pop stars, recently launched the presale website for her upcoming Eras Tour and the site is atrociously horrible, crashing every two seconds and infuriating people who are “waiting in the queue” to buy $750 general admission floor tickets for her shows.
According to downdetector.com, the site had over 4,000 outages as fans rushed to an online queue to secure their exorbitantly priced ticket. Basically, since the outrage of T-Swift's Ticketmaster site stupidity, enraged fans have been scorching the efficacy of the entire tour and the suits in Washington didn't waste a second to jump on the bandwagon, talking smack on the Taylor Swift/Ticketmaster tour hate. White House Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, tweeted some truth that we can all agree with.
He wanted all the smoke and tweeted, "Over my years in the public and private sectors, I've had people tell me: If only the government could work like business. Well, the team at @USEdgov and @USDS built a Student Loan Forgiveness portal that processed 8 MILLION applications in the first 30 hours without a crash." This was all in reply to an Axios tweet scorching Ticketmaster and the Taylor Swift debacle. For once, the government did a dang good job and they're proud to shove Taylor Swift's face into it. With 26 million student loan debt relief applications filed in the last two months, I think we can safely say that the Feds came out on top this time. Between Ticketmaster, Taylor Swift, and Ron Klein, I think we know who has their chin held up the highest this week.
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