Comment by higherpurpose | Hacker News Reader

Comment by higherpurpose | Hacker News Reader

I wish both Google and Microsoft would understand that you can't force change down users' throats. It needs to come naturally. They need to want it, and have it grow organically.

Sure, forcing them will definitely bring you bigger "adoption" (for lack of a better word) faster, but it will also build up a lot of resentment, potentially negating any advantage you might have from ramming the change through, in the long run.

A lot of people didn't understand Twitter in the first 3+ years, but it still managed to grow organically, because people wanted to join it over the years. Google tried to push Google+ to its 1 billion users within 2 years, with seemingly very little advantage for the users. What did they expect?

Same for Microsoft when it comes to pushing Metro to PC users who have been perfectly happy with their PC interface, but Microsoft wanted to force them to use a tablet interface on a PC. Why? Because Microsoft said so, and because they would get to flash "bigger numbers" to developers for "Metro users". The actual experience of the user on a desktop was barely a distant concern.

If you're a big corporation, and you can't grow a new business organically, then tough luck. Maybe you shouldn't be in that market then.

I cannot applaud your comments enough. Microsoft has absolutely lost their mind trying to push the Windows 8 tablet interface on desktop users; Google+ integration is one of the biggest threats to user engagements (and personal safety in many cases). On one hand I see that their missteps create opportunity for new companies; but on the other hand, it worries me about the lack of alternatives and what it means if I can't use an OS or social network that doesn't want to absolutely fuck me over.

Honestly, all we need is a search engine that returns decent results and doesn't try to tell the world who we are (DuckDuckGo) and a social network that lets us only communicate the way we want, to who we want (???).

I wish both Google and Microsoft would understand that you can't force change down users' throat

Innovation is a funny thing, and interestingly, forcing change on end users is something for which Apple regularly receives praise. Or as Henry Ford pointed out, people wanted faster horses. Few people probably wanted rush hour gridlock either.

Denonymization of the internet had already happened long before G÷. Cookies and tracking data were collected for more than a decade before its rollout. G÷ just made it explicit, and Apple was already ahead via iOS and the app store and the SIM cards in all those phones. Microsoft was barely a step behind them, and for me? Well I think the Metro interface has huge advantage over WIMP. It's cloud identity integration that drove me from Windows 8. Installation was the Oh-Shit moment.

Except people are ignoring the significant market growth slowdown that Apple has lost since Job's departure. A lot of old school Apple-friendly press always cheer each Apple release, but the reality is Apple hasn't really been "Apple" for some time. You have to remember that all of the news Apple released last week doesn't matter to the average user/consumer. The biggest news from Apple over the last 3 years to the average consumer was that they bought Beats headphones.

I disagree. Facebook forces changes upon users all the time, with success. For example, the news feed was suddenly forced on everyone, even amid much protest. The difference between FB and Google+ is that most users end up liking FB's changes, whereas that can't be said of Google+.

> The difference between FB and Google+ is that most users end up liking FB's changes, whereas that can't be said of Google+.

There's a difference between product changes (e.g. Facebook's news feed) and policy changes (e.g. forcing Google+ use for other Google products). People aren't upset with Google because they changed anything about G+, it's because they changed everything else for G+.

I don't think there's a difference at all. If you force a change (product/policy/whatever) and that change is generally desired, then it will work. FB forced changes that were popular. Google forced changes that were unpopular. I think that's pretty much all there is to it. Forcing changes in of itself doesn't lead to failure.

I have to disagree. The changes (esp in regards to privacy policy) are what made me jump ship to G+ in the first place. And based on the comments from most of my friends on FB at the time, they weren't happy either.

> I wish both Google and Microsoft AND Apple ...

Right!?

Yeah, the new iOS uses the iCloud on American soil for all your pictures and videos by default...

Shareholders and analysts don't have the patience for a 3-year organic rampup. They want promises and returns by the end of the quarter. This is what happens when you go public.

3 people together hold enough voting power to make all decisions, and those 3 people wrote in their S-1 that they have no intention to ever listen to shareholders and analysts.

Yet there we all were, on the eve of the Facebook S-1 filing, all asking Google what are you gonna do about social?.

> understand that you can't force change down users' throats

Actually, they can. When you are Google/Microsoft/Facebook/etc-grade oligopolist it requires quite extraordinary changes to ward off your users who are already hooked to your services. I.e. the changes that actually prevent them from further using the service, or make transition to another one (if there's any) less painful than managing to live within the new environment.

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