Comment by aestetix | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aestetix | Hacker News Reader

It seems that there is an increasing trend from Bay Area tech companies (maybe tech in general) to bootstrap by taking in users feedback (twitter RT feature), get to a certain size, and then totally abandon their base.

To an extent this makes sense, like if there is a new company CEO who has a different vision, etc. But many of these decisions-- dropping Google Reader, the trend to ditch the headphone jack, and now Slack killing IRC-- seem to be made for no apparent logic reason, and giving some bullshit excuse like "security reasons."

Is this driven by data? If so, why don't they release the data and show us? Alternatively, in a free market, the way to best compete is to offer more options to your customers, unless you've attained a semi-monopoly, or have some kind of trust agreement.

Is it that difficult to maintain these things? Apple and Google are among the richest companies in the world, and Slack just raised $250 million. Given that not only are all three features I'm discussing established and probably only need occasional maintenance, the headphone jack has been around for over 100 years. It's not like they need new science breakthroughts for it.

None of it makes any sense, unless the entire Bay Area has gone Dilbert.

> It seems that there is an increasing trend from Bay Area tech companies (maybe tech in general) to bootstrap by taking in users feedback (twitter RT feature), get to a certain size, and then totally abandon their base.

You should read the book "Crossing the Chasm". This strategy actually makes a lot of sense if you want to be successful. Summary: your early adopters are not your main customers, and there is a divide there. You will hit a ceiling in growth if you continue to focus on the early adopters.

There's a difference between focusing on people and completely abandoning them. One of the reasons many people (myself included) are leaving Twitter in droves is because Twitter has made changes which betray its original community.

In fact, at this point I would argue that Bay Area tech companies are actively hostile towards the people who helped create them. To use Twitter again as an example (because they have done so many stupid things), to come out with the ridiculous "we decided to change likes to hearts" icon crap when many, many people were crying out for some solution to the rampant abuse on the platform, was not just a lack of focus, but a show of active contempt.

One of my biggest criticisms of the growth model (in part championeered by YC) where you focus on getting users first and then figure out how to make money, is that it almost always leads to this sort of betrayal. This is also the general problem with offering "free" services to bootstrap things. There was a period of several years where some of us (again, myself included) were outright begging Twitter to let us pay for our account. This happened again with Ello, and when they took VC money I lost all trust in them.

When you have an entire paradigm of companies that are following this strategy as proposed, over time people will see a pattern, and when a company practises the first steps in that pattern, it's not hard to see where it leads. As a result, I'd argue it leads to an erosion of that initial base, and therefore companies in the future will not be able to bootstrap in the same way.

> But many of these decisions-- dropping Google Reader, the trend to ditch the headphone jack, and now Slack killing IRC-- seem to be made for no apparent logic reason, and giving some bullshit excuse like "security reasons."

Google Reader didn't bring Google more money, even indirectly. Removing the headphone jack leads to less cables and less open holes in the device. Slack's IRC gateway wasn't very good, and nobody used it, plus its existence allows easy circumvention of some paid tier features, like logging.

Everything has a reason, even if you might not like the reasoning.

> Google Reader didn't bring Google more money, even indirectly.

Was there a way to pay for it? Further, even if a feature doesn't bring money, does it cost sufficient money to maintain to merit removing? Why not just open source it and let the community maintain it?

> Removing the headphone jack leads to less cables and less open holes in the device.

The stated excuse for this was to allow the system to be thinner. By "less cables," do you mean inside the device or outside it? For inside it, I don't know, for outside it, it has lead to all kinds of drama, such as for professional musicians who have expensive equipment that used the classic jack.

Further, it's clear to me Apple was not confident it was a good idea by the fact they included the lightning jack->headphone adaptor for free. Regarding "less open holes", don't they have waterproofing technology already? One of the big arguments I've seen that makes more sense is that by forcing audio through bluetooth or through the lightning port, they are able to push DRM. Unsure what I think about that.

This also doesn't explain why other places, like Google, are following suit, much to the dismay of their customers.

> Slack's IRC gateway wasn't very good, and nobody used it, plus its existence allows easy circumvention of some paid tier features, like logging.

I use it extensively, and a quick persual of twitter (and this comment section) shows I am not alone. Further, if "nobody used it", then why would "circumvention of some paid tier features" matter, if nobody is doing circumvention?

Now I have to make the decision whether to have a tab open, which from past experience will suck up about a gig of ram and be generally sluggish, or to use their native app, which from what I understand is basically an app wrapper around Electron and is even more sluggish than the non-app.

On some further reflection, it seems that the "paid feature for free" argument could translate into "security", and thus explain Slack's strange messaging. That is so far the most logical explanation I've heard. Thanks for helping me understand!

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