I.

PERSONAL FREEDOM

When I was a freelancer, developing and creating things was pretty grand. I would get the required specifications from clients, sit down to work and complete that project knowing that it was something the client wanted and would use. If there was something the client didn’t like, they would tell me what exactly it was, and based on further discussion, I would fix/change things. I don’t believe in the age old salesman motto of “the customer is always right”, and this system played very nicely into it. The customer was only right as long they were paying. You want X amount of work above what was quoted initially — you pay accordingly. You can’t — you don’t get your extra work. No hard feelings.⌘

Unfortunately, that is not the case when one sets out to build something that is aimed at a general demographic. There are lots of considerations — features, usability, accessibility, and just the plain old “is it worth it?”-ability. Every new service wants the most number of users it can get, so even if it has a clear goal in mind, there are chances that the field will make the developers compromise, justify and bend their goals around a little to encompass things that they probably wouldn’t have thought about when they started off.⌘

Apple Inc. is the only company (in my recollection) who have stuck to their ideals with such fervour that they fundamentally remain unchanged after nearly 30 years of existence. They haven’t given in to users, competition — even stock holders’ pressure. If there is one aspect of Apple that I want to imbibe in my personality, is their management’s (and by that, I of course mean Steve Jobs) ability to remain cool, calm and focussed — while the rest of the world drowns and falters in the rapid. I understand that Apple has built a reputation, a certain level of loyalty to be able to confidently carry on its plan, but something has to be said about their confidence in their ability to execute. Taking the current situation, hear the every day screams for a netbook. Apple already said it won’t do one, because they don’t know how to do one. I think the iPhone is their answer to the netbook — but you will not see a dedicated netbook from Apple — even if it may mean an untapped, potential pot-of-gold market.⌘

Companies may say that adding features to rope in more users is just good business sense, that it doesn’t matter as long as the users are coming in — because at the end of the day, a business in a business. It’s nothing without revenue. On the web, there are many services which are surviving on venture capital alone, and have yet to (publicly) reveal a revenue model¹. The best bet in a lot of these cases is to just bring in tons of users, and then put ads on every page. There are pitfalls of that too, especially since there is a huge barrier to actually executing that plan — the users. And that’s where the main problem lies.⌘

II.

AT GUNPOINT

I’ll try to define the different categories I put people into. People for me are either users or developers. Users are the ones who may or may not have a technical know how of things, but use whatever you have to offer to improve their way of working. They might be loyal users, or users who just look around once and dump things if they don’t like what they see, but they don’t contribute anything to you or your product — except maybe spread the word a little.⌘

Developers are ones who actually contribute to your case. They use your APIs, your platform to create something new. They’re the good guys, who’re looking to improve your offering, as well as improve their own way of working. They give you feedback, constructive advice, and tips to make your product better.⌘

Developers work to build a platform or service, and during that time, they are accountable to a lot of people (the first ones being the management) of why they do certain things in certain ways. When the service begins to get popular, the developers become accountable to users as well, who hold the service at ransom for not getting features. This might be the definition of a fair-game competition, where alternatives are always trying to out-do each other to look attractive to the user. The threat of losing users if you don’t listen to them — no matter however ridiculous they sound — is too great to the management, so the developers have to find a way to listen to everybody.⌘

I am a user, as well as a developer. I hold a certain respect for each and every software/service I use — and not for the usability of the app, but the effort of the developer. And I can’t help but think, that everybody is accountable for something. Everyone, but the user. What is there to stop a user from giving a completely unfair, uncalled for negative review of your app/service — all under the shroud of anonymity if they choose so? Who does a user answer to, when they make tall requests, that take developers weeks to implement — and then promptly leave the service? If developers try to lock in users by holding to ransom their data or any other such thing, there are hundreds and thousands who call out the unfairness or anti-competitiveness.⌘

All this makes it sound like developers are sitting ducks to getting really exploited, but truth of the matter is, everyone needs to take a stand. As long as they’re clear in their minds about what they’re trying to achieve, such things will not come up. Remember what they say about trying to make everyone happy. There is a certain level of truth in that, and when you’re dealing with the most diverse demographic — the entire web — that saying takes a whole new meaning. “If you don’t stand up for something, you’ll fall for anything”.⌘