[xpe]

Two things. First, some economists study stated versus revealed preferences. [1] The idea is to figure out what people do rather than what they say they will do.

Second, in the case of people making feature requests, it could be a net-societal-gain [2] if feature requesters made some kind of binding commitment. (See also the hold-up problem [3].) Perhaps a potential customer would commit to "if/when feature X gets added, I will commit to using the product for 2 hours." or "... I will spend $10 on the associated cloud services." (The question of what happens if the customer reneges also has to be agreed upon up front.)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference

[2]: known as social welfare (not to be confused with welfare programs -- this is the neoclassical economic framework after all!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_welfare_function

[3]: this paper discusses the hold-up problem in the context of vaccine investment and development: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28168/w281...

[consumer451]

To be honest, I wrote this comment off on first glance for some reason. (I need to do better)

This is actually super interesting. Thank you so much for sharing.

[xpe]

Sure. Do you have anything in mind for using it somehow?