20 years, I still dont understand how most developers dont understand. I guess that is the difference between a developer mindset and product manager mindset.
And hence why lots of startups failed.
Look at the tools developers use throughout their careers: Powerful version control systems that support nearly every operation you could imagine. Command line tools with pages and pages of documented switches. Server software with configuration options for every little thing you could ever want to adjust. Well documented open source software that can be changed to your liking with a simple fork. Websites full of fellow developers freely asking and answering almost any question you might have.
When dealing with complexity is the story of your career and you spend 40 hours per week doing this for years on end, it's easy to forget that your customers aren't in the same boat. Most of your customers are using your products to get their job done. They want to learn it quickly, get in, get out, and get back to their work as quickly as possible. They might not even know if they're going to use the same tool at their next job, so taking time to learn it in depth isn't appealing.
As a professional user, I bought a $2,000+ workstation. I expect the applications I run on it to be powerful tools, not toys. But, there are also plenty of other people who run apps on $200 mobile devices who are fine with fewer features. Pick one market and go after it.
> Most of your customers are using your products to get their job done. They want to learn it quickly, get in, get out, and get back to their work as quickly as possible.
This is true, but a missed opportunity. Many people could benefit from more powerful tools to do their work more quickly than currently possible. The "get back to their work" part is the dissonant part; the reason the power tools work for developers is that using those tools is our work, not something we have to leave to get back to it. This should be the case for more people than it currently is. It is not just developers though, there are really powerful tools for a bunch of high-leverage fields, for example image, video, and audio editing, and many different jobs in finance. A lot of the low hanging fruit may have been picked, but I suspect there are huge industries where this sort of thing is still ripe for picking. For instance, I still constantly interact with professionals using awful underpowered tools for their very specialized jobs, for example lawyers, accountants, and teachers.
So may be it's important to understand your target audience.
Of course some people just hate their job and the only thing that makes them happy is the end of the day...
Remember, as someone on this forum, you're on Over Achiever Central.
Devs have to deal with all the bugs and messy codebase
It’s promotion-driven-development.
I generally feel that most things are best when they are in some kind of healthy tension. Appeasing power users happens because it appears to align with both of the above.