I love how the author shouts from the rooftops the following
>This argument is both incredibly entitled and terribly egocentric (...)
While this whole post reeks with entitlement and egocentrism - but from his perspective, so that is OK!
To me, it feels like the author is incapable of empathising with a larger user base than himself and only thinks about his benefit and how the changes affect him and how he uses the product.
>Let me be clear: when I buy a product I am paying for what the product can do for me now. It fulfils a need that I currently have. I am not paying money out of my own pocket for a faint hope that the product may do something in the vague and nebulous future.
This is simply not true. Depending on what you buy (a physical product like a bike) or a software subscription (like photoshop), you get those upgrades whether you want it or not. You don't want it? Then DONT BUY THE PRODUCT. Customers have the ultimate power: voting with their wallet. You don't like it? You go to the freaking competitor!
I understand the authors frustrations but customers have the ultimate final say in anything by voting with their wallet.
> To me, it feels like the author is incapable of empathising with a larger user base than himself and only thinks about his benefit and how the changes affect him and how he uses the product.
I disagree. "Users hate change" is a meme that's generally accepted in the industry; the post applies empathy to dig into the reasons why it seems that "users hate change".
> Customers have the ultimate power: voting with their wallet. You don't like it? You go to the freaking competitor!
"Voting with your wallet" in a non-commodity market doesn't work. Doubly so if we're talking about complex products with complex feature sets, making each essentially an unique animal. Triply so if the "feature" of "not mindlessly messing with the UI/featureset" is impossible to predict ahead of time.
If your favorite what ever changed, do you like it? Or do you immediately go what is this? Regardless if it was good/needed.
There is obvious parts where a change may be good or needed, and those are easier to accept. But if you deem X to be good enough does a change that increases the ability to do Y speed by like 5% really matter if it changes everything. No.
"Voting with your wallet" always matters. Doesn't matter if it's free or not. It always matters. If half of anyones customers stopped using the product because of a redesign, they would consider alternatives. The problem is people complain and stay, and 5 weeks later they are used to it and don't care anymore until the next change.
"Voting with your wallet" always matters. Doesn't matter if it's free or not. It always matters.
Do you understand how discouraging the network effect is on free products? Any social media app that breaks out is quickly bought by the big players and they reset the score again.
...with most big software products, you can't really "vote with your wallet", because they have a monopoly. They may even have "earned" that monopoly status because once a long time ago they were really good, and this was the reason they became successful.
But there's a certain type of mediocre-yet-charismatic people (call them bullshitters), which attach to such successful products like leeches, and the downward spiral begins.
Yes, and customers do very much vote with their wallets, even when the costs of switching exceed the benefits of switching!
What kind of bike, or most other physical products, get updates or upgrades for free whether one wants them or not? Certainly physical products with software and networking can, but people are often upset when that happens anyways. I'm pretty sure almost all bikes are not in fact automatically updated or upgraded after they're purchased. And that's essentially a 'feature' now in comparison to a lot of software purchases.
>This argument is both incredibly entitled and terribly egocentric (...)
While this whole post reeks with entitlement and egocentrism - but from his perspective, so that is OK!
To me, it feels like the author is incapable of empathising with a larger user base than himself and only thinks about his benefit and how the changes affect him and how he uses the product.
>Let me be clear: when I buy a product I am paying for what the product can do for me now. It fulfils a need that I currently have. I am not paying money out of my own pocket for a faint hope that the product may do something in the vague and nebulous future.
This is simply not true. Depending on what you buy (a physical product like a bike) or a software subscription (like photoshop), you get those upgrades whether you want it or not. You don't want it? Then DONT BUY THE PRODUCT. Customers have the ultimate power: voting with their wallet. You don't like it? You go to the freaking competitor!
I understand the authors frustrations but customers have the ultimate final say in anything by voting with their wallet.