alt Hacker NewsA big issue is sub-contracting and diffusion of responsibilities. Often the person you're doing business with isn't the person who actually delivers the service to you, who instead is just a lowly paid worker who has no control or freedom to make decisions.
When I got my bathroom remodeled I talked over the design and gave the first payment to a friendly guy who assured me that all of my demands and expectations would be met.
A week later the workers show up and they're subcontractors who barely speak English, don't know anything about what I discussed with the first guy, and have no responsibility to listen to me since they work for the other guy, not for me. Meanwhile the sales guy is suddenly too busy to answer my phone calls.
I don't think that's really the issue, I think that's just one of the ways in which the lack of control manifests itself. You could substitute your problem with the main guy sending incompetent employees, or showing up himself but drunk, or doing poor work, and the cause would be the same: you can't do anything about it, you're not in control. If you were in control, it's no big deal. Imagine you're a well-organized GC on a new build house. You hire Sam's Plumbers and Sam sends some shit subcontractors. It's no big deal because you have Sam's money and you have other plumbers you've used before. You're not reliant on Sam, Sam has an incentive to care (and thus fix things), and you have real recourse. Or for a simpler example, I order a pizza, cash on delivery. Pizza place uses Frank's Delivery and Frank drops my pizza and it's all fucked up. They used subcontractors but I am in control: I don't need to pay, I can order different pizza, and I live here, so they have an incentive to make it right.