[squarefoot]

To me many products are just the result of management asking engineers to apply the company IP to make something that can be sold. The market is saturated in every niche with a huge load of products compared to the number of potential buyers, so they have to act creatively in the hope one day they make a killer gimmick. Example: if IoT and AI are the new words, then everything must be connected and/or exhibit human-like intelligence, at the risk of developing junk product with no actual usefulness, like shoes asking politely the user if they can twit in real time how much his feet stink after a long walk. But again that is rather the result of management looking for money in every possible way than brilliant minds attempting to solve vital problems.