[gizmo]

In every other industry you have to invest money upfront so you actually have a product to sell, and as the software industry matures the table stakes will continue to rise. People are only willing to use half-baked prototypes when they have no choice, but in more and more domains customers will have choice and expectations go up as a result

[JimtheCoder]

"People are only willing to use half-baked prototypes when they have no choice, but in more and more domains customers will have choice and expectations go up as a result"

But how long are they actually using the half baked prototype?

I thought the purpose of the half baked prototype was to validate the idea, get good user feedback and get as much information as possible before dedicating resources and making more permanent design/architecture choices.

If you are spending massive time and resources before this is achieved, you are doing it wrong IMO...

[smcin]

But what is and isn't "half-baked prototype"? People/users/media/investors confuse GUI with functionality with "addresses actual use case(s) for users who might pay/subscribe".

I'd rather have something with a brutal/nonexistent GUI but provides useful functionality and gives me a warm fuzzy that the developers have some use cases in mind, or a suggested workflow.

Yes there is a first-mover advantage to getting into a domain early.