What we really need is an article about "The Death of Articles about (why|when|how|if) to use MVPs, written by people who don't understand Customer Development and the Lean Startup approach."

Of the several articles decrying the MVP that I've seen hit the HN frontpage in the past few days, every single one of them (and or the associated comments) have shown a profound misunderstanding of what it means to follow the Lean Startup approach. Hint: being a Lean Startup does NOT mean developing a buggy, shitty looking, incomplete application, releasing it to the public and hoping for the best.

Also note that the strategies for developing a product in an established market are NOT the same as when you're creating something truly novel. If you don't understand that, go back and re-read The Four Steps to the Epiphany.

In fact, if I could assign homework to random people, I'd assign re-reading that book as homework to any and every body who's tempted to write another blog post commenting on this subject. :-)

Just to re-iterate: A couple of the major tenets of the Lean Startup approach are to learn continuously, and specifically by gaining validated learning, AND to eliminate waste, by not building something nobody wants. Ergo, a true MVP represents the intersection of the least you can build and still gain some useful, validated learning (context matters here, see above about established markets, vs entirely new products), while avoiding building stuff in advance, that will ultimately become waste.

That's it... nothing requires your MVP to be incomplete, buggy, shitty-looking, unstable, or any of those other things... BUT, and this is a key but, it might actually be any of those things, IF it can be and still meet the above goals!

Also nothing about the methodology per-se requires you to launch your MVP to the entire world from day one. Ok, maybe there's something about your scenario that dictates that the ONLY way you can gain any validated learning is through a worldwide launch to the public... I don't know, it's your startup not mine. But for most of us, MVPs are meant to be shown to a handpicked set of early prospective customers, preferably ones who have already been through the earlier stages of the Customer Development process with you.

Edit: To be fair to the original author, the title does specifically mention that he's referring to "competitive markets" and I do acknowledge that the exact criteria for your MVP may vary when you're entering an existing market. The one point I'll add about that, is that while Customer Development and the Lean Startup approach still apply in this setting, they seem to be most optimized for startups that are creating entirely new markets for radically new products.