The Adjacent User Theory

I don't think that's true. An entity (corporation, government, etc.) continuously decides whether to humanize or dehumanize its citizens/customers. Which way it leans in any (every) decision is a matter of goals and values, not a matter of scale.

E.g. a government may not know all its citizens in a personal sense, but it can establish charters of rights and freedoms, it can design humane and accessible services, etc. Scale doesn't prevent these things, rather it necessitates them.

This isn't new by the way. Many people talked about it. Off the top of my head, Patrick Collison mentions the importance of reviewing and expanding your product-market fit on Tim Ferris's podcast.

This sounds like a blog-form re-write of Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm", a book from 1991.

There seems to be a rash of people blogging up with 'new' ideas and theories that have existed for a long time.

Of course. In context, I read "anything at scale does this" to mean "anything at scale dehumanizes its users" which is the point that I disagree with. A scaled-up service can still honour the client -- it takes intention and good design, but it's certainly possible.

> they didn't ask their current users what could make it better

They often do, this is part of the innovators dilemma in that early adopters aren't often mainstream customers, so the feel unheard, when in fact the company is listening to its more mainstream users (once they arrive) - which often causes the early adopters to lament and chase the next thing.

> They aren't chasing anything other than that metric

It isn't that these companies aren't listening users, or aren't creating value. They would fail if that was the case. The metric is profit and a big presumption is that with free-trade and free-markets any transaction is mutually beneficial. If they don't provide value to the customers, the customers don't pay. If they keep providing value for more people, enough value that people will pay, then value really is being created.

I think the concerns more have to do with with:

* Hidden costs - such as giving up your data or privacy aren't usually clear (and if they are, in the sense you are giving your data, the implications and risks aren't clear) * The value might only be "on-net" better. For example, network effects have "value" in the context of the data, even if better platform might exists that don't the enough critical mass participation. * A related problem to the above, the product might be on-net better but still not optimal for your country, demographic, social group etc ... (non-bay-area-based-white-affulate-males) * Markets aren't always free (enough) so disparities and distortions cause real issues. All sorts of externalities abound. * Indirect user/purchaser models like advertising will optimize for things that while they may maximize overall profit (if done well) are NOT optimal from a purely user-centric view. * Change, of any kind for any reason, good or bad, is often lamented by users