[chii]

> Admitting things aren't perfect is the first step to making things better.

the implied assumption being made here with this train of thought is that it is the author's imperative duty to make things better.

It is not. The author has zero obligation to make it better for anyone; they do it at their leisure and at their convenience.

[least]

> It is not. The author has zero obligation to make it better for anyone; they do it at their leisure and at their convenience.

Yes, and it's people's prerogative to write reviews criticizing the software that is published, regardless of whether it's paid or not.

[dessant]

> Yes, and it's people's prerogative to write reviews criticizing the software that is published, regardless of whether it's paid or not.

Do you think that review was respectful, now that you know that the donation prompt was not obtrusive nor randomly shown (see my other comments, it has been explained in detail)? Don't you feel that the way this person expressed themselves was rather demeaning, and perhaps somewhat unjust?

[least]

> Do you think that review was respectful

Not particularly, but I also wouldn't really describe it as particularly disgusting or demeaning, either. It could have been worded better, but I'm not going to read too deeply into what random people on the internet say about me personally.

I find anything that's trying to interrupt what I'm doing like popup advertisements, cookie modals, and other things of the sort irritating because it forces me out of my workflow and requires action to continue what I was doing. It doesn't really matter how frequent it is. When i'm actively installing extensions I expect there to be a popup that is giving me information about the application. Dark Reader has a donation button featured on their popup from their action. I don't find this to be invasive even though it's there literally any time I interact with the extension. I ended up paying for the extension on safari because I liked it so much.

That's just my opinion, though. There's a lot of things that I find distasteful that would make me uninstall an application that seemingly don't bother the majority of people, and ultimately, you have a right to make your application how you see fit, but I don't think there's anything wrong with criticizing it for what that user clearly views as distasteful.

[kerkeslager]

I don't think that your opinion that the prompt was not obtrusive is objective truth. Whether a prompt is obtrusive or not is very much a matter of subjective opinion, and I tend to value user opinions on user experience over creator opinions on user experience.

The fact that the donation prompt was shown on startup doesn't undermine the reviewer's preference for not seeing a donation prompt at all. They're factually incorrect on a minor detail, but that doesn't change the larger point.

The rudest part of the review was them referring to the prompt as "panhandling", which is actually inaccurate, and if I were writing the review I would have used a milder, more accurate word there (maybe "soliciting"?). But in receiving any communication from anyone, it's unreasonable to expect people to communicate perfectly, and I try to understand people rather than criticize how they communicate their ideas. I certainly would not describe that as "disgusting" or "appalling".

And again, I'm not saying you should remove the donation prompt. In fact, if you made it show up every time until a user donated, I'd have no objections. Users wouldn't like this, but you're not obligated to fulfill users' every wish. Just as users aren't obligated to fawn over everything you do when it doesn't do what they want it to do.

Believe it or not, users can want things, and you can ignore what they want, and those are both okay!

[caconym_]

I don't think anybody here is saying it's illegal to be an asshole.

[kerkeslager]

No, I'm not implying that at all. The author of the software isn't the only one who might improve the software based on the criticism. A completely different person might decide to clone the software with suggested improvements, for example.

[agos]

In which case the author can happily ignore all the reviews!