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Users You Don’t Want

themacro.com

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Re: Users You Don’t Want

#101

Post by fennecfoxen »

crdoconnor wrote: post #96
blfr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

>If it's not profitable then why should Airbnb be the one to subsidize it? Because they're massive rent extractors. Rent extractors should subsidize most things.

AirBnB is a rent extractor? That's a tendentious claim; the reason all the 'sharing economy' stuff works is that it's improving capital utilization and damaging cartels. I'd expect that real rent extractors are hotel owners in big cities with limited hotel zoning, who lobby for anti-AirBnB regulation to keep competition low and prices high. Or the politician/business alliances who build the local convention center by forcing a $N/night tax on local hotels.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#102

Post by afarrell »

aianus wrote: post #95
afarrell wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Uber has wheelchair vehicles at the same price as UberX: https://newsroom.uber.com/canada/uberwav/

Oh wait they are rolling that out? I had thought they were just doing a perfunctory trial run in philly that they then cancelled. Huzzah!

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#103

Post by AnimalMuppet »

amelius wrote: post #63
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.

Yeah, except with airline seat space, the 1-sigma chunk of the bell curve is outside what (comfortably) fits.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#104

Post by fennecfoxen »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #83
blfr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Why should anyone have to support them at all? It comes down to they and their supporters convinced society we should care about them and we decided those profiting off the majority to be the ones bearing the cost of the minority. Why do I have to bake a cake for a gay wedding if I do such for straight weddings? Because the people who want that requirement have won the level of support needed to have legal support.

Circular reasoning.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#105

Post by sauerbraten »

CPLX wrote: post #50

Posting an article called "users you don't want" and then using a developmentally challenged teenager as the example of a user that you don't want is so spectacularly tone-deaf that I am left somewhat speechless. I keep thinking this will be the year that the valley types wake up and realize this kind of mentality puts them in existential danger from mobs with pitchforks, but it keeps not happening.

The user(s) you might not want are the parents, not the disabled child. Proper care for the child represents their quite unique problem that they want you to solve so they can use your product. The child having special needs is what sets these patents/users apart from the parents/users you made the product for.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#106

Post by Muted »

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…

I understand this for products that have product-market fit. But what about products that aren't generating any revenue yet? Wouldn't the fact that someone is willing to pay to develop it further for them indicate demand for the product? Also couldn't this be viewed as doing things that don't scale by building a product that one company loves? How do you draw the line between this, and creating technical debt?

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#107

Post by CPLX »

rconti wrote: post #100
CPLX wrote: post #50

Posting an article called "users you don't want" and then using a developmentally challenged teenager as the example of a user that you don't want is so spectacularly tone-deaf that I am left somewhat speechless. I keep thinking this will be the year that the valley types wake up and realize this kind of mentality puts them in existential danger from mobs with pitchforks, but it keeps not happening.

2017 is the year of mobs with pitchforks on the Developer.

The developers might be OK. If I was a VC type though I might be looking over my shoulder.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#108

Post by mbesto »

> In the case of Justin.tv, pivoting to serve video gamers was the right move. Our video game broadcasters always represented a small but consistent group of users. It tooks us 4-5 years to realize how important they were. Serving them didn’t change the costs of the business too much: our major costs were salaries and bandwidth and we didn’t care what video was being streamed as long as people were watching and chatting. Also it opened up monetization avenues that were very interesting: online video advertisers would prefer to advertise against video gameplay than general UGC content.

It also happens that UGC pertaining to video games is a huge category of content on YT and represents a very lucrative audience (25 year old males with disposable income): http://www.tubefilter.com/2014/12/19/15-percent-youtube-vide...

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#110

Post by geofft »

aianus wrote: post #95
afarrell wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Uber has wheelchair vehicles at the same price as UberX: https://newsroom.uber.com/canada/uberwav/

It looks like UberWAV in NYC provides app-based access to the existing fleet of wheelchair-accessible taxis: Uber will find a taxi and dispatch it to where you are, and you pay taxi fare. That technically works (assuming the dispatched taxi shows up), but I'm not really sure it should count, especially because Uber's obvious goal is competing with taxis and driving them out of business.
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