[gravitycop]

>> the customer base forms part of the toolset.

> Toolsets can be changed, improved or mastered. I [cannot] do [this] with my customers.

You cannot provide any value to the world that would involve a different customer base? After Kozmo re-emerged as MaxDelivery, it changed its customer base (one of its tools in value creation) by starting out with only high-density neighborhoods of Manhattan (and it continues to change its customer base as it gradually expands its delivery areas). It has mastered its customer base (again, one of its tools in value creation) by learning how that tool reacts to various delivery deals, and by employing improved delivery deals. Please see the article linked above.

For at least many decades, bike-sharing advocates and politicians have been failing to efficiently employ the tools at their disposal, one of which is their customer base. That tool, the customer base, has been blamed over and over again as "the problem" as bike-sharing advocates and politicians have repeatedly employed essentially the same defectively-designed policies.

[jacquesm]

I don't think that you can compare a broken business model with abuse of a system by spammers and others hell bent on destroying some of the nicer sites that well meaning teams have developed.

By that analogy usenet was 'asking for it' because it was open, worked and actually contained great content. Of course that meant that it was ideal for the jerks of this world to try to peddle their wares, eventually resulting in the near destruction of usenet.

On the web the relationship between the number of people that you have to employ to look after abusers vs the number of people that are actually productive is a good way to measure your success....

[gravitycop]

the relationship between the number of people that you have to employ to look after abusers vs the number of people that are actually productive is a good way to measure your success.

Yes. That is what I said. The workman with internal-locus-of-control improves his value-creation system based on feedback, and is seen as more successful. The workman with external-locus-of-control blames parts of his value-creation system for acting (in his eyes) wrongly, and is seen as less successful.

[RiderOfGiraffes]

Recognising that customers behave a certain way and taking that into account is valuable. Blaming the customer for behaving that way is of little use. You have conflated people recognising that people behave in ways that cause difficulty with blaming them for doing so. Not helpful.

Separation of concerns is as useful in customer identification as it is in writing software.

[RiderOfGiraffes]

If I change my model to change my customers, I am changing my customers, not changing my toolset. You are deliberately confusing/conflating two fundamentall different concepts,and I believe that while you personally, and perhaps others, may derive some benefit from it, doing so inhibits effective communication.

http://xkcd.com/169/

I agree that blaming the customer base for the failure of the bike-sharing schemes is wrong, and I agree that it may be that changing the target customer base is the only effective solution, but do not agree that calling that "changing your toolset" is helpful.