[Uehreka]

Success hides problems though. If through some unforeseen means a competitor were to arise in 5-10 years who happened to have a better UI that works for a wider range of people, then spending 35 years saying “They can’t choose anyone but us! Let them eat CLI arguments!” is going to look pretty silly.

If it would cost a tiny, tiny fraction of their revenue to shore up their UI to make it harder for a future competitor to disrupt them, that seems like a worthy use of money.

[cbzoiav]

They tried it - nobody used it.

One thing people fail to realise is while not initially intuitive once you get used to it the Bloomberg UX becomes muscle memory to instantly load (they force all but the smallest customers onto leased lines) exactly the data you wanted in a dense consistent (UX on any remotely popular function is reviewed and guidelines enforced) easy to read form.

[_alex_]

this. bloomberg terminal is an expert friendly system. it’s not optimized for high conversion rates and casual stickiness, it’s optimized for the productivity of people who are willing to spend the time building the muscle memory.

[smegger001]

it is the Emacs of finance.

[kmonsen]

You mean vi right? (I prefer emacs myself partially because I feel it’s more noob friendly)

[rovr138]

> a better UI that works for a wider range of people

But also remember how much it costs and what their clients are willing to spend. It's not for the wider internet.

[solidasparagus]

While I kind of agree, I think it goes against the culture of exclusivity. Generally speaking, goods that are valued because they are exclusive are not strategically better off by making that product accessible to more users. Burberry is a great example of this and how bad it can be for the company.