Building trust with strangers is hard

I discovered that virtual addresses are a thing today, and ended up going down a rabbit hole learning how they operate and what options exist locally.

The one that really caught my attention was the cheapest one. It's not because they are the cheapest but, based on past experience, because the website had elements that made me feel that the company is trying to tell a fair story based. However, the "fake" photos of professionals (for example, people with headsets on, and open plan office with people on laptops) made me raise my eyebrows.

I ended up looking into the company and the founders, verifying the legitimacy of the testimonials on their website, digging into their company history, and so on; and it looks like a legitimate business offering real value. And I did that because I had previously worked at a company with a similar customer-facing website before — and we were doing real, honest work.

That's the point where I stopped and wondered if I'd let those "fake" photos of professionals influence my initial opinion of the company a little too much.

I shall explore further and write about this again.