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Users You Don’t Want

themacro.com

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Re: Users You Don’t Want

#61

Post by jt2190 »

GuiA wrote: post #20

> Now, what happens if someone with an infant or developmentally challenged teenager signs up? Their needs present an entirely new set of problems, problems that could be solved by a startup but not necessarily by ours. Remember you don’t have to pivot your business because a customer needs something that you don’t offer. If you open a restaurant, you bet that there are certain building codes you'll have to follow in…

Why is agreeing to help someone that you don't have the time, money or expertise to help a good thing? Isn't it extremely misleading to tell someone you'll help them when you can't deliver? Isn't it more responsible to direct that person to someone who does have the expertise to help?

(edit: There's an assumption here that because one company can't help, that none can. Should we make this assumption?)

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#62

Post by DanBC »

nostrademons wrote: post #10
Animats wrote: post #4

That's a good argument against "accessibility". You're probably not getting significant revenue from the screen-reader people.

The benefits of accessibility are largely PR-related: nobody wants to be the company that makes blind peoples' lives more difficult. There may be ADA-compliance issues as well when you get big enough. That said, accessibility is something you do when you're a big company. When you're a startup, work on making it useful to the easy customers, and then only once you have something that lots of screen-reader people want…

Accessibility benefits everyone. Everyone wants easier to read, easier to understand, websites. How does a harder to use, harder to understand website help a business?

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#63

Post by amelius »

GuiA wrote: post #20

> Now, what happens if someone with an infant or developmentally challenged teenager signs up? Their needs present an entirely new set of problems, problems that could be solved by a startup but not necessarily by ours. Remember you don’t have to pivot your business because a customer needs something that you don’t offer. If you open a restaurant, you bet that there are certain building codes you'll have to follow in…

It is not just accessibility. It also happens with sizes of clothes. Companies aim for the easy 1-sigma chunk of the bell curve, and ignore a large chunk of statistical "outliers". Or take airline seat space for example, where companies simply assume that people are no taller than 5.5 feet.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#64

Post by blfr »

GuiA wrote: post #37
shocks wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What happens to that segment of the population when/if Airbnb completely kills off hotels in a particular geographic location? Someone makes Airbnb for folk with mobility problems and makes a killing.

What if it's not profitable to do that on its own? The "free market takes care of everything" argument is an idealistic position, not something based in reality.

If it's not profitable then why should Airbnb be the one to subsidize it? Why not the government? Or some charity? Or you?

We don't expect anyone who meets a homeless person to offer them a place on their couch. That would be unfair. And an additional incentive to avoid homeless people. We have (well, not everywhere but at least we aim for) a systemic solution. There are homeless shelters for example, sometimes run as charities, sometimes tax-supported (ie. everyone is required to chip in).

It's weird when we try to offload these problems on the first person who touches them.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#65

Post by DougN7 »

ryandrake wrote: post #48
pc86 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 49.9% of executives agree with that and 90%+ of product people/developers agree with that too. The problem is that it's rarely X and Y. It's almost always justifiable, though. Imagine X=1 and Y=100. If you sell 1 and a customer asks for 100 it's easy to say no. If they ask for 50 or 25 it's still easy. The problem is when they ask for 2. Or 1.5, and are willing to pay big bucks to get it. It's hard to know wh…

Oh, yes, it's a difficult call. The customer might even start in with this (stop me if you've heard THIS one before): "Hey, we'll pay all your NRE for you and you get to sell it to everyone else including our competitors as part of your product!!" Do this, and your product people (if you have any) will all quit, and your engineering talent will start thinking "If we're just another custom engineering consulting compa…

But there are cases (my common case) where something the customer wants is really a great idea and many other customers would benefit (and we would have eventually gotten there). So it's not always a bad thing :)

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#66

Post by amelius »

ryandrake wrote: post #16

Been through this at medium sized companies struggling to sell. This kind of customer is alluring but poisonous. Company: We sell Product X! Toxic Customer: I don't want Product X, I want Product Y. If you're willing to bolt Product Y onto one of your menus I will pay you this stack of money for it! Company: $$$! Bam! The company just went from being a product company to a custom engineering service. You will have to…

But what if selling Product Y allows you to become ramen-profitable?

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#67

Post by jcrawfordor »

School-Cotton wrote: post #55
dsacco wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the statement discriminatory? If a company decided to start a sharing economy-based babysitting service, but doesn't have the requisite resources (or training/certification among workers) to look after special needs children, it's okay for them to not cater to those individuals. It's not as though they have the ability and are denying service - they are choosing not to develop a product or service with accessi…

> Taxi companies are not required to cater to handicapped individuals who are restricted to wheelchairs. Actually, yes they are. http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/faq/faq_access_veh.shtml

Not just in NYC, this is an almost universal element of taxi regulation. The city will either require that taxi companies operate a certain number of ramp taxis as a condition of their medallions (thus implicitly subsidizing them off other taxi rides) or directly subsidize operators of ramp taxis.

The State of California recently required all of the ride-sharing companies to produce reports on how they "planned" to accommodate disabled riders, but so far as I know, nothing has come out of it.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#68

Post by majewsky »

codegeek wrote: post #26
ryandrake wrote: post #16

Been through this at medium sized companies struggling to sell. This kind of customer is alluring but poisonous. Company: We sell Product X! Toxic Customer: I don't want Product X, I want Product Y. If you're willing to bolt Product Y onto one of your menus I will pay you this stack of money for it! Company: $$$! Bam! The company just went from being a product company to a custom engineering service. You will have to…

You literally explained the situation I find myself in with my bootstrapped company. I couldn't have explained it better.

He also literally explained the situation of any IT department in a reasonably large corporation. N departments equals M custom features with M > n.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#69

Post by riboflava »

falcolas wrote: post #46
tobyg123 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core of the article is saying that you can't satisfy everyone , and the point of the replier was to point out that, if the need is that great, and there are such large amounts of people with the same issue, the free market will produce an alternative.

What if the need is great, but there isn't a lot of extra money to be made? Should the minority with disabilities be forced to pay extra to convince someone to provide them with otherwise identical functionality? Many accommodations, if not federally mandated, simply wouldn't happen. For example, handicapped parking spots. People who use those spots are technically capable of using other parking locations as well, an…

Yes to your second question.

Maybe the government can offer a tax return bonus to cover it. And pump more money into fully general cures for all disabilities. I'm not against making disabled peoples' lives better, but focusing entirely on the supplier side is a mistake.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#70

Post by afarrell »

gautamdivgi wrote: post #33
GuiA wrote: post #20

> Now, what happens if someone with an infant or developmentally challenged teenager signs up? Their needs present an entirely new set of problems, problems that could be solved by a startup but not necessarily by ours. Remember you don’t have to pivot your business because a customer needs something that you don’t offer. If you open a restaurant, you bet that there are certain building codes you'll have to follow in…

This is a good point. Same with Uber. Most Cab companies are required to provide access to wheelchair bound and disabled members of society at no extra charge. Not sure if Uber has the same requirement - and if and when it starts moving cab's out of business it will definitely prove to be a problem.

> Not sure if Uber has the same requirement

It doesn't. I've a friend (who might be popping on this thread here soon) who's been working with adapt.org on pressuring Uber on this issue.

In theory, ridesharing should be much better for PWD than trying to hail a cab and cheaper than government services like the MBTA's The Ride. However it very much does not look like it is the case right now.

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