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Plumber, Electrician... Digitician?
Alien54 writes "This article from the Sunday Boston Globe describes the rise of a new type of tradesman called, for lack of a better term, a digitician, a label describing the burgeoning army of overqualified, unemployed, or free-spirited computer technicians being deployed to front porches around the country."
I don't know how many times I've done this for free. Imagine all the interesting stories you'd have, too. Certainly a lot more fun than corporate IT.
And for various reasons, we as a society don't really respect mechanics, as a profession. I wonder if some day those who fix computers will be held in a similar regard.
I've been picking up some nice spare change just doing this on weekends. Now that I actually have a name for it, that ought to add 25% or so, even though I'm closer to the 30$ an hour end of the spectrum.
Who is John Cabal?
I've always believed that Linux/FOSS distributions would be a fantastic model for this sort of thin horizontal distributed economy. You have thousands, if not millions of Linux savvy people out there who can make money on those around them who just want their computer to work for a specific purpose.
This beats the hell out of the centralized monopoly model. Who better to support your computer than someone who understands it intimately? If they cannot fix it, they can go to the author and ask them to fix it - an unlikely happenstance for the average user, but not so much for a "digitician".
We don't even have doctors who make housecalls anymore, but now we have technicials making housecalls? Or maybe it's just a different form of a doctor... not for humans, but for the machines. Next thing you know machines will be buying groceries and talking to eachother... oh, I guess they already do that.
Except this guy has a Havard MBA. A tad bit overeducated? Good luck. I'm sure the money is good. Especially given the rates he charges. However, I think I'd just cut out the middle man and become an industrial plumber.
Which leads me to the point. Do you realize how easy a smart guy could clean up in some field like industrial construction? There's lot's of money in it. Imagine entering that field with some serious math/physics/chemistry skills. Why waste your time being a computer technician? Heck, no one would care if you taught yourself chemistry in a field like that.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
I guess that I would qualify. I'm a 16 year old high school student, and I go around and help people (Mostly refered through my Mother) set up and clean up computers. It's dangerous world out there, and most people really dont know the basics of safety. I set up Antivirus, Antispyware, some basic IE hardening (Why is a signature good enough to run an activex control by default?), and intstuct in thier use. I also do routers, which are increasingly common in my town. $20 an hour, but most people throw in a tip. Increasingly, people need me and others like me because they dont know or dont care about how their computer really works.
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
Aren't computer technicians already held in about the same regard as mechanics? We as a society seem to view them the same with respect to skill level.
Sounds to me like a digitician should be a person who does digitation, does typing qualify?
I did this at school in the dorm while I lived on campus. The school paid student techs didn't have much of a clue and their answer was normally to reformat. So I started fixing things for friends, cleaning viruses, solving network problems and cleaning the crap out of mice. They were normally most impressed that they had a "new mouse again." Most of the time payment was a couple of beers or a hot pocket.
It's encouraging to see unemployeed techs finally taking advantage of all that time they spent fixing friends computers for free. I know I'm usually the first one several of my friends and family call when their computer starts acting weird, and all they want to do is send email.
Now if somebody was really smart, they'd find a way to get partnered with the local Best Buy and could probably turn it into a full time job. You'd be amazed at how much people are willing to pay if you can bring some sanity to their assorted home electronics. My mom loves the 3 page FAQ I made for her that goes step by step how to do everything with the home theatre system my Dad has. She used to not watch any DVDs just because she was scared to touch anything.
ce n'est pas un Sig.
I have a friend who went around charging 50 dollars to take the MS.Blaster worm off people's computers. This amateur computer repair field has great potential, as computers penetrate further and further into most bussinesses. Time is money, and paying some kid 50 bucks to fix a computer is often cheaper in the long run then spending 2 days doing it yourself. I plan to do the very same thing with a local company over the summer break from school.
I want to be a Digitician when I grow up.
SAILING MISHAP
Just like *most* plumbers or electricians, shouldn't there be license granted by the state or other civic government for in-home techs? I say ABSOLUTELY!
Consider the case where a so-called digitician shows up at grandma's house, does essentially nothing, and gets paid, then grandma, or her linux-loading, do-gooder grandson, should be able to file a grievence to have their license revoked.
Overall, there should be some type of code enforcement.(pun!=intended).
No, Vern. They just let him in.
It also depends on what "repair" is.
"Repair" might mean that the computer won't boot up at all, and this person has their doctoral dissertation nearly complete on it. Of course, they haven't made any backups... It would easily be worth $800 to recover that data and get the computer up and running again.
For me, when it comes to working on people's computers, I basically tell them it will cost them $50/hour. But also that I have an "hourly" cost for certain jobs. From start to finish, installing windows and all their software may take more than 5 or 6 hours. But a lot of that is just waiting. So, for that job, I'll tell them it will be about 2 to 2 1/2 hours of billed time.
I wonder if there are any tools that could make tasks like this easier, such as a LiveCD Linux distro that included antivirus and spyware tools for cleaning up windows partitions? That would solve problems such as unidentified worms that disable antivirus software.
If someone could guarantee me to have my PIII laptop working with the USB-Quattro I bought specifically for it. With Jack/Alsa/FluidSynth/Muse I'd give em 80 (Bear in mind, there's nearly 2$ to the pound now).
Similarly if someone could get my 1394 port working in Mandrake instead of just dyne:bolix I'd pay em. It's a time over money thing. I don't have the time to learn how everything works anymore. Working sucks.
The author of the article brings up a good point, that many home/home-office computers have important personal and financial data on it. Although I'm sure that all of these digiticians (horrible word) have pretty good troubleshooting skills, what happens when they forget to make a backup? They can't replace the data, that was the sole copy. They can try and sell the owner a backup system, but that makes it look like the data was lost to sell another unit. Do these companies carry any sort of malpractice insurance, or do they just operate on a "we break it, you buy it" principle?
Although, I do think that $125/hour is a bit much.
Remember, it also depends what it's worth to the technician. I would charge at least $125/hr to someone to fix their computer, simply because I don't WANT to fix their computer, and it's not worth any less to me to do it. They can always find someone else.
One of our contractors was just in a similar situation. He used to always do a week-long government job calibrating some insturments way up north. Normally, he was charging something like $30k to do it. This year, he didn't want to do it, so he quoted them $70k. They decided to do it anyways (apparently he's one of the only people with the equipment needed) and so he went along and got paid more than twice what he did before, for doing the same thing.
Of course, all that said, usually when I do end up looking at a computer, it's for a friend that knows I can do it (I pretty much never volunteer that I can do it, because I absolutely hate fixing hardware problems) and I do it for free, or cost of parts.
Speak before you think
I work at Student ITS for our school, and we do free tech support for students. We don't get paid nearly enough for the heroic resurrections of 10 year old computers we perform daily. :)
But people are always amazed when they have a hardware problem, and we tell them that they might as well get some $300 Dell that's light years ahead of their circa 1997 "Valueware" PC than try and swap out Mobo, HD, and power supply.
Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
That's what I tell my family and friends when I go fix a computer. You can either feed me dinner for x days, or pay me $25/hour.
I posted a week or two back but got rejected.
But the gist was that a boy scout leader took his PC into a local computer repair shop. The shop somehow found kiddie porn on the machine and reported it to police.
I'm not into child porn but I'm also uncomfortable with what the notion that the repair shop had to go snooping to find the child porn.
If a gangster left a dead body in the back seat of a car when they left it at the dealership for an oil change and the mechanic found it and reported it to the police, fine. If the customer leaves stuff on the computer desktop, that's open game too.
But customers should have the security of knowing that the repair guy isn't going to snoop through their data.
Before you reply that everyone is uber-stupid, you are wrong.
Maybe everyone isn't stupid about computers, but having worked at two company help desks, I see that there is a growing trend to admit, "I don't know anything about computers" before I even find out what their problem is. In my experience I estimate that about 65% of the people that call me will say something to that effect without being prompted or just when asked a simple informative question (like how much space is left on your hard drive).
I think that many adults now have just given up on attempting to become computer literate. They seem to find it easier just to admit their inadequacy right up front and save themselves a lot of embarrassment. I find it very sad to see the number of people who have no faith in their ability and no determination to learn. Rather than having me explain some potential ways to prevent this or indicators to look for, it saves them time by keeping their level of abstraction high. I do think that this behavior will decline a little with the "kids" growing up with PCs. However, like someone else said, they will still keep a distance much like most people do with cars.
Some common PC-phobe give-away statements: "me and computers don't get along well," "computers hate me," "I dunno anything 'bout these things," "I replaced my brain with Cream of Wheat(R), here's a big pile of money to fix my computer with."
How does one protect themselves as a digitician?
/. that "techsupport for friends and family" can get ugly especially when a friend/family member blames you for everything that goes wrong with their computer when alls you did for them was change their monitor resolution.
We all know from previous posts on
If you are doing this on a house-call basis, how do you let your customers know what you will and what you won't fix/be responsible for, etc?
LLC? Have your customer(s) sign a waiver?
I think that if I was to do this type of work on a full-time basis I would incorporate myself or obtain a LLC (limited license corporation) so that a litigious customer would not be able to come after all I own.
Just a thought...
While it is true that some mechanics are less than honest, many of us in the trade are sick unto death of getting blamed for cheap construction and unrealistic customers.
Modern cars are very good, but they are not meant to be perfect. Often, components break upon disassembly because the automakers can't be concerned with giving Joe Average a truly serviceable car. If they did, the cost would be unacceptable to the public. When an honest tech tells the customer that something broke coming apart they are usually branded a liar or incompetent, so they often have to dodge the subject, or get ripped off by the customer. As long as car buyers are more concerned with features and bold new styling than quality, this will continue to be true.
As far as the assertion that mechanics lie about the needed repairs, this is often due to a misunderstanding over the economics of the situation. Due to the complexity of modern autos, many diagnostic operations are best handled through educated guesses. This is due to the unfortunate fact that the customers are often unwilling to pay the real cost of step-by-step diagnostics. Most of the time experience can suggest a solution without hours of diagnostic time. The bad part is, when this fails, the customer gets upset about having to actually pay to fix their less-than-perfect purchase. Too often, no amount of explaining can overcome the customer's belief that their car (which is quite broken) is just fine, it MUST be the mechanic's fault.
I am often reminded that working on cars is like my experience supporting Windows machines, in moments of frustration, I just turn to the user and say "I didn't buy or build this peice of shit... I'm just the one that has to fix it for you!"
Also, if you find yourself getting taken by any businessman, perhaps it is because you are too busy doing other things to do your research first. If you are just handing money over to anyone, you are almost sure to lose.
If they have a decent connection just point them to a vnc server - its easy to install over the phone on windows and then you can fix all their problems from home - best thing about it is, they'll have to stay on the phone so you can tell them "plug the camera in, restart" 50 times, and because they have to actually do something they'll eventually get irritated enough to stop asking you. :P
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
.... would be a better term. The number of people who think they are a 'technician' because they've successfully built a PC clone using only their bare hands and a phillips screwdriver is huge.
Granted, it is an 'empowering' experience, but in the old-school a Technician knows how to solder, hand code little diagnostic tests in Assembly language, troubleshoot the problem down to a component on the circuit board, and more.
If you've never handled a wirewrap gun, and you have no idea of the relative advantages of a totem-pole versus an open-collector output, you're not a technician, you're a dilentante from the coffeehouse who ordered a 'PC Tool Set' off ThinkGeek and copped an attitude.
---
I seem to recall a debate about 20 years ago where a group of renegade electronics 'engineers' wanted a new title because they felt 'engineer' was too 'mechanical' and, well, electricians had their own title after all.
Following an exciting month or two of correspondence in the trade press, the best they came up with was 'Electroneer'!
OK - hands up all those with 'Electroneer' on their job description or business card!? Hmm, thought not. L3K
Engineer, Electroneer, Digitician
AT&ROFLMAO
Several years ago (1995), my best friend and I started up a "computer consulting" company. Basically we did the so-called "digitician" thing, as well as doing full IT support for a number of smaller businesses as well. We were very successful with it, and had a number of good clients. We charged $35 per hour, for on-site work. We almost never would bring a machine back to our shop for fixing, it was almost always done on-site. Our customers really loved it, as we were both the cheapest in town, and the only ones who would not require that they bring their computers to us.
We were very much the pioneers of this type of service in my home town (300,000 people), and now everyone is doing it, albeit at twice or three times the cost.
I'm currently thinking about doing it again (I quit about 5 years ago - too much stress), on a smaller scale. I enjoy fixing stuff, but not on a full-time basis.
I've done a few small jobs so far - still at $35 per hour - but am not sure how much time I really want to spend on it. The money's ok, but I just mostly do it because I enjoy it.
Seems almost a crime to charge money for something I love to do (and I already do this 8 hours a day at my day job!)
Just my thoughts on this, having gone through it all when it wasn't common.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
Some day? How about already?
It's not my regular gig, but I do some stuff for various people on the side, pretty much just the same small group of people the last 5 or 6 years. One time I'm out of town on business and one of these folks had an "issue" with a critical software package. She had no choice but to call in someone else to try and get them through the week as the package is critical to their small business. Well, I get back the next week and spend 4 hours cleaning up the crap this "certified expert" did to their systems. One database was so screwed up we had to restore from the week prior instad of spending days they didn't have to fix it.
On top of that, this "expert" recommended about $6000 in upgrades for them, including taking all 4 of their workstations fron Windows 98 to XP (Never mind the version of the software they use has data corruption issues under XP. No problem! Just upgrade that too!), replacing their "server" (a 98 box they use for simple file sharing. Really simple file sharing) with a 2000 Server, and all the various hardware to make everything run almost as fast with the new OSs as it does now.
What they have hardware and software wise fits their needs just fine. Windows 98 on 700Mhz - 128 MB machines is plenty fast for what they do. And besides, they don't have $6000 to drop on upgrades.
That's just the most egregious example I can recall offhand, but don't you worry, there are already tons of computer "snake oil" salesmen out there. One guy at a company I used to work at was "helping" people with their machines in the office for cash. One of the receptionists asked me to have a quick look at her computer after he did some work on it. My God! He made her buy another network card (one that XP autodetected and had drivers for) because he was too dense to know how to install drivers off the motherboard CD. Apparently in his world, if XP can't find it and deal with it automatically, it's broken!
The thing is that some people don't want to ask a friend or a friend of a friend to fix it. They feel guilty/ashamed to ask for help. They like the idea that they can call someone up, and pay for the service, rather than ask a friend to do it for free (we all bitch about this).
With 1+ computers in many people's houses it is a great opportunity for some people to make a buck helping them out. I mean, everyone wins - the boxen get cleaned of tojans and such and one of us nerds makes some money. In this economy it seems like a nice niche. It may be becoming a commidity, but at least there would be fewer open boxes if more home users _hired_ a geek to help them with thier box sometimes.
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
But as one old man did say when asked to account for his intelligence "8 years of education and 60 years of learning".....Our education may or may not go up to a very high level but if we have initiative and curiosity we never stop learning.
Wanted : A Signature.
I already do this in my business. I repair pc's and do just about anything possible you can do with a pc, but I don't really sell them. If someone asks me to build a new pc for them, I gladly will, but I've given up on trying to compete with the large retailers that dump pc's for ridiculous prices. The latest trend here has been low cost supermarkets selling ultra cheap pc's. Nobody can compete with that, so I won't even try. Instead I make my money when the guy that buys a cheap pc gets home, connects it to the internet (if he can even do that himself) and then proceeds whithin the next month to get beleaguered by the unholy trinity of spam, spyware and virusses, until his pc is rendered almost unusable. That's when they call me to fix their pc's. They usually try their manufacturer's helpdesk first, but the recent outsourcing trends have made sure that I get the business sooner than later, because
1) I show up
2) I speak their language
3) I can fix their stuff instead of dicking around with fixing the wrong stuff and reformatting their hard drives until they don't dare call anymore.
I don't think there's ANY future in hardware sales, since most people simply are too much cheap bastards to really consider the level of quality and service that they'll get before they buy. They only see the price. But if they want to keep their shit going in this day and age, they'll invariably end up on my doorstep.
Judging from the typical 'the end-luser sucks!' attitude around here, I can't see many /.ers being very successful in the door-to-door PC support field. What a shame. There's probably a lot of money to be made and the 21 year old geeks with bad tudes isn't going to see much of it.
Right on. Everywhere I come, I install the same things. A version of Windows, MSN Messenger, Outlook Express, Office, etc. Now before you guys come lynch me for supporting The Evil Empire, I've got to plead in my defense that this is WHAT PEOPLE WANT. Sure they're mindless sheep, brain washed by the Redmond Emperor, but still it's what they want. To me the client is king. If he wants a buggy piece of software, I'll install it and any updates I can track down. I'll configure it to disable the most annoying 'features' so it's more usable. Almost every time I'll also point out the many, many better alternatives, but they simply don't want that. They want something exactly like the neighbors or their friends have. My job is trying to make their MS products work as good as possible. And ofcourse plug the holes in the swiss cheese that is Windows.
I'm probably not trying hard enough to convert them to other applications, but it's simply not my job. I'll gladly support open source whenever I can, but it's not my duty to go door to door spreading the word of Linus. If someone else wants to, they're welcome.
Last (well the only) time I helped someone out, I did in fact sell them a printer instead of look for a driver. I'm sure Windows XP has a dirver for their Epson dot-matrix printer, but the fact remains that it is obsolete, and not worth the time (10 minutes max) to find it. Even though it took longer hook up the new one. In the long run they are better off without that old noisy thing. Their text looks a lot better too, laser print looks a lot nicer than dot-matrix.
If their old printer was an ink-jet I would have sold them the new one just on the basis of ink savings, but at least an ink-jet has a place, if you do color.
So long as Windows doesn't have the security to prevent it[1], that $300 is a recurring expense. Sure a new computer would solve the virus/spyware issues, but either way you will have the same problem back again in 3 months. So your choice: pay the tech $300 every 3 months to fix the problem, or buy a new machine for $800, plus figure out how to migrate your data to the new machine (perhaps hire the tech to do it, perhaps $100?).
[1]Linux and Macs would suffer the same problem if they had the market share of windows. It is now known how much though, either appears more secure on the surface. It might be less because of that, but we can't know.
I do my own wiring, and my own plumbing.
:)
Why shouldn't I ? few electricians or plumbers have more than a highschool education. I can read the National Electric Code just as well as anyone else with basic literary skills, and unlike most electricians, my engineering time in college has given me some background in physics, EE, and power engineering so that i even have a little context to figure out where the rules come from.
The "electrical" part of electrician work for around the house type jobs is totally trivial. I mean, its all color coded. The "work" is figuring out how to route wires, pulling them, wiiring terminals, patching holes, etc etc etc. The actual "electrician" work of enabling a new wire run with a breaker back at the service entrance now takes me less than 2 minutes of total time. Can you do basic multiplication ? You can plan new circuits!
I've also upgraded and expanded the gas piping network in both of my houses. You cant begin to imagine how much that costs for what is essentially measuring pipes and screwing them together with pipe wrenches (you can buy an awful lot of pipewrenches for 1hr of pipe labour)
I also happen to have more upper body strength than most plumbers i've met, so its not like they're tightening pipes with more torque than i am
It's always nice though when the pro's come and look over your house, and compliment your work. And I smile all the way to the bank.
Specialization is for insects.
Remember - you CAN do it yourself. I'm a software person by employment, but consider the following things i've done in the last year:
- replaced clutch on car
- replaced brake pads/rotors
- replaced radiator
- replaced/repaired exhaust manifold
- replaced idle control valve
- replaced height-adjusting suspension components
- repaired $1300 ECU (cold solder joints)
- added new gas pipes for 2 dryers (2 different houses)
- added new pipes to support tankless water heater (which i also installed)
- tiled 2 bathrooms and a kitchen
- stud-wall kitchen remodel (all electrical, flooring, walls, cabinet installs, plumbing, lighting, appliances, moving an hvac register)
- jetted bathtub install
My wife and I did every remodelling job in our last house ourselves. We called a structural engineer to help analyze one situation with a crooked house jack, and hired one general contractor to do the bathtub drain (i was still afraid of the crawlspace at that point)
We made a killing selling that house because we did the work in our spare time, price shopping the cost of materials. While we lived there we had a beautiful house to live in and use, and when we sold it our improvements paid off handsomely. Not to mention the incredible sense of accomplishment you get from doing things yourself. You what quality of work was done, you learn more about what to do next time, and you dont have that sucking feeling of getting ripped off that you get every time you write a check for a "pro" to do a shitty job.
In my basement right now is my first peice of wooden furniture. We couldnt' find a nice set of wood shelves of the appropriate height, so i figured i'd build some. We'll see how my finish carpentry skills progress.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
The biggest thing I learned from my IT job wasn't anything techincal. The biggest thing I learned was patience.
No, it doesn;t seem ridiculous to me. Whenever I get a tradesman around to fix the washing machine, put some power points in, etc etc, I always ask them how they make money doing what they do. $55 an hour is not much money when you have to maintain a van, pay for transit (time and wear and tear on van and fuel etc), maintain a toolset, stay current with industry trends etc etc etc. All these costs have to be amortised over all the clients; that's why the stripped wheel stud cost $100 to fix at the mechanic. Labour costs money. Workshops cost money.
There is a guy (in Halifax I think) who calls himself "The Sound Doctor" who makes a living from going around and setting up home theaters etc. A previous poster joked that with new ranks of Digiticians, VCR clocks around the world found finally not be flashing 12:00. But this Sound Doctor guy REALLY does that kind of thing. His business is getting TVs, VCRs, DVDs and home audio working right (for $60/hour or flat fees for some services I think). Another poster commented that if a digitician got a contract with Best Buy they would be set. Well, according to this Sound Doctor guy, he used to work for a big box store before branching out on his own. He gets some business from those stores, but increasingly the retailers are seeing customer service as another stream of revenue and doing it in house.
Some stores will offer to set up your new surround sound system for you .. for a small extra fee. (or included in the price if they are trying to be competative).
I'm not sure that this IS a growth business. I wonder if it isn't just a little niche market run by word of mouth. In the same way that high end audio stores will set up your equipment for you, and come back to tweak it (for a price) I can't imagine why Best Buy, Future shop et. al. wouldn't expand into this area. My dad always takes his Volvo into the dealer where he bought it for servicing. When my brother had a problem with his laptop he took it into Future Shop to see if they could do anything for him. I think a lot of people are like that and more inclined to call, and trust (even if that trust is unwarranted) the kinds of places where they bought the original equipment than a one-man operation like "Dr. Dave".
But, if I am wrong and this is a viable business, i think it would make sense to offer a comprehensive service - servicing computers, home networks and home audio / media equipment.
-Craig
The thing I liked least about doing house calls, and the reason I stopped doing them, was the overly irate people taking their frustrations out on the guy who's trying to help them get their systems up at the least cost and greatest speed. Amen bro. Add the frustration of a broken device they don't understand to the unexpected expense of a repair (as opposed to glee at purchase) and for _some_ people, the target for all of the blame is the mechanic/digitician who delivers the bill. It doesn't matter how hard you try to do good work, be honest and professional, save them expense, by the time they tell the story, you ripped them off (even though they truely haven't a clue what you did!) These are the same folks who repeat the tales of the low-down scum-sucking mechanics who ripped them off. Success at house-calls would rely on developing skill at detecting this type of client in advance and avoiding them like the plague. "# Just another Perl Hacker." - Randal Schwartz
I expect to get called out to troubleshoot computer-related stuff. However, I'm still not used to getting paid to hook up a DVD player for someone who could have spent a little time learning how to do it themselves.
Maybe it is easier from their standpoint to pay me to do it rather than trouble themselves, but let's just say the minimum standard of self-reliance has been dropping as far as I'm concerned.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
It seems that your big problem here is NOT with the computer mechanics but with the printer manufactures. The companies building and selling printers these days are NOT selling printers they are selling INK. HP sells printers below cost because they will make the money up on ink. They build the printers to wear out quick not because they want you to buy a new printer but because they want to make sure that they can combat the 3rd party vendors that sell replacement cartridges and / or refill kits.
This is not only limited to ink jets anymore either. If you look around you can find you a HP color laser printer for under $500 bucks. I saw one in Office Depot and wasn't surprised to see the tiny tiny color toner cartridges.
Until people start refusing to purchase these devices the problem will remain. But, most people don't understand the cost of print concept and think wow, I can get a new printer for $25!
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
I don't know, I can feel the text on laser printouts, it is just plastic and has a feel. I don't have any impact printed samples to test.
Not being blind I can't comment on readability (well I could attempt to learn it, but seems like too much effort). I would note though that prior to the invention of Braille blind were taught to read "raised relief" letters, which were basically the above without much success, once Braille was introduced they had no trouble reading. I suspect that neither system would work well for blind people.