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Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

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Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#81

Post by newbie578 »

pranau wrote: post #64
hermannj314 wrote: post #9

Amazon recently turned on support for Amazon Sidewalk on all of their hardware in my home (convention) and decided it was fine to do this because I could opt out (configuration). That decision was the final straw for me. Every Amazon device is now unplugged, Prime membership and Amazon music canceled, no longer shopping on their site. Doing what is "easy for the average user" is not sufficient for me, some configurat…

Can someone explain why there’s so much outrage against Amazon Sidewalk when it’s doing a similar thing to Apple’s Find My/AirTags which was met with almost universal praise?

Easy, Apple has a cult following, Amazon doesn't.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#82

Post by geoah »

kuu wrote: post #78
pranau wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain why there’s so much outrage against Amazon Sidewalk when it’s doing a similar thing to Apple’s Find My/AirTags which was met with almost universal praise?

I guess some of the reasons are that Sidewalk is: - For a product that was already owned and did not need it until now - Activated by default, as optional opt-out instead of opt-in

Isn't it the same with airtags? Your iphone will forward data about other people's airtags as long as you have upgraded to the latest ios. You can opt-out, but you need to know about it first. Same deal I think with sidewalk.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#83

Post by anoncake »

bobthechef wrote: post #35
anoncake wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with having good defaults, just with not being able to override them. "Opinionated" usually means latter.

That makes it sound easy. Overriding means the capacity to be overriden. I.e., if you can change the default, then it presupposed that you have a mechanism for dealing with various options PLUS some other options. That's additional work.

Yes, you need to implement a configuration mechanism, but you almost always do anyway.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#84

Post by teekert »

pranau wrote: post #70
teekert wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't like if I would specifically keep my Samsung Smart TV offline because Samsung themselves advice not to talk about sensitive things in front of the telly [0], and then finding out that it did go online, via my neighbor's helpful Alexa... No thank you. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31296188

Are there any indications that the Sidewalk network can be used to relay other than device control information?

Maybe not, but as always it comes down to trust. And I trust Apple to be more diligent with my iPhone's AirTag locating capabilities than Amazon is with their ability to help any device get online.

Amazon makes things cheap and easy but not always in ways agree with.

As a counter Example, Canonical got some critique with their "telemetry in the installer", but if you ask me, they did it in the nicest way possible: They told everyone that they want some data to focus developers' efforts where it counts and they let me inspect the json object I was about to send them, so I trust them and sent it to them with a smile.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#85

Post by ako »

mistercow wrote: post #62

I think the tweet in the opening screenshot is simply wrong. I would argue that you almost always want paste to preserve the pasteboard formatting. Most copy/paste is within the same document, where you obviously want the odd bolded or italicized word to retain its formatting. But you don't notice those cases, because everything is working as expected. What you notice is that when you paste from an external source, t…

I use copy/paste in powerpoint explicitly with the intent to copy over the formatting of the original to the destination deck. Easiest way to add a theme to an existing deck.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#86

Post by pranau »

kuu wrote: post #78
pranau wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain why there’s so much outrage against Amazon Sidewalk when it’s doing a similar thing to Apple’s Find My/AirTags which was met with almost universal praise?

I guess some of the reasons are that Sidewalk is: - For a product that was already owned and did not need it until now - Activated by default, as optional opt-out instead of opt-in

I don't own an Amazon smart device and I don't think I ever will so I cannot comment on whether there is actually a need for a feature like Sidewalk.

Find My is also opt-out instead of opt-in

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#87

Post by pranau »

teekert wrote: post #84
pranau wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any indications that the Sidewalk network can be used to relay other than device control information?

Maybe not, but as always it comes down to trust. And I trust Apple to be more diligent with my iPhone's AirTag locating capabilities than Amazon is with their ability to help any device get online. Amazon makes things cheap and easy but not always in ways agree with. As a counter Example, Canonical got some critique with their "telemetry in the installer", but if you ask me, they did it in the nicest way possible: Th…

Thanks, that makes sense. Eventually, it does come down to trust then. I was under the impression that there was a technical reason as to why Amazon Sidewalk is worse than Find My.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#88

Post by CharlesW »

cma wrote: post #53
a4isms wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some where in the mythical “Business 101” course is the lesson that you can either find a customer and figure out what they need (customer-focus), or find a need and figure out which customers have that need (product-focus). This dynamic is everywhere: Apple has customers, they look at what their customers need, and do various product extensions (like streaming games) to fill their needs. Whereas many vendors on the…

It is more honest to say Apple breaks things like streaming games to fulfill business needs of locking out or taxing third party providers of it and making their own. Not to fulfill cusomer needs: blocking it hurt customers.

How you feel about this completely legitimate, but it simply means that you are not the customer they're serving.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#89

Post by jfengel »

Opinionated products are killer products when lots of people realize they share your opinion.

Apple banks on that. They are commonly derided by technical people for what their products don't do, but for a lot of users, they're happy with what the product does. Making it more capable would often make it harder for them to use.

Even making it configurable doesn't make it better. Even if the options are hidden, just having it there makes users nervous. They think, "Well, I could maybe make my device better, but that involves going into the no-no hell menu of billions of options". They're literally happier to just do it the opinionated way.

The trick, of course, is to actually have an opinion that a lot of people share. Often, that opinion doesn't exist. Even if it exists, you need to find it among the thousands of voices trying to tell you that they need some variant of it. It seems to require a fair bit of luck, though chance favors the prepared mind.

Re: Want a killer product? Become more opinionated

#90

Post by xrd »

Killer product is such an amorphous phrasing.

If the author meant best product, I agree.

If the author meant best selling, I'm not sure I agree.

MS Word needs to have all those configuration options for IT to check their boxes AND write the enterprise sized check.

If you are making a consumer app, this all seems like good advice. But I'm not sure it is good general advice.

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