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by chucklarge 5221 days ago
A few of these points seem really petty, a monospace font in the editor? Deal with it.

I don't use Wordpress. I am on Facebook, do I think they care how their site should work? Why should they care what my opinion is? Because i am a user, I get to complain and get my way?

This attitude that users dictate how products and sites should function only brings to mind the Henry Ford quote in the Steve Jobs book. If Ford had asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse.

Apple has made a very successful business out of not building faster horses. If you want it your way, start your own business.

4 comments

If users of Wordpress.com were the "capable of building their own business type" they would not have been under Wordpress.com.

People can armchair quarterback all they want but until and unless you see things from Wordpress.com's users perspective, you won't get the point.

I think that you should consider if your opinion is the opinion of statistically significant number of users. From what I know, wordpress.com has millions of users and only small percent take part in such discussions. Can it be because most of them like or don't mind changes? Many times I've seen a group of users complaining, but after a rollback of changes I had to deal with another one with opposite views. It eventually leads to all users thinking that you are a jerk. I personally like to ignore such requests, as it keeps the size of unhappy group almost constant and I don't have to do anything I don't like.
This Ford analogy is absolutely misleading and wrong under the context. Wordpress is not a new innovative idea in 2012 here, Wordpress is attempting to change with the time and users have all the rights to share their input.
I am not saying user feedback is not valuable. I am not sure where the line is between feedback and just being a brat is though.

MW has obviously been successful at a blogging platform and service (maybe other stuff, don't know his full history). My point about the Ford quote is that maybe he has a good vision for how his service should be run.

There is always going to be tension between the producers of a service and the consumers of that service. Neither could exist without the other, but I tend to feel that the exceptional people who have succeeded where others have failed should be given more credit.

I agree with chuk, of course.

One does the business they way he wants. If customers don't like your way they are free to leave.

If the business survives this kind of bleeding, then the business model was right anyway.

And did you see that comment: "we’ve got 25 million beta testers".

Hope no one brings out the "free card" here.