zlacker

>>anothe+(OP)
The growth mindset is incredible for expanding when your product is in its early ages. But there should be a "sustain" mindset at some point. First you push to grow the market, or your market share. When returns on your efforts become diminishing, you push to improve how much you earn of each customer/each sale. At some point there should be a mindset that our company is worth X dollars, and we should sustain that.

What happens instead is companies keep rewarding executives by increases in revenue, they keep rewarding product managers similarly, and product managers selectively choose metrics that optimize immediate revenue, at the expense of brand loyalty. This is happening to almost every tech company, and the exceptions are rare gems.

In android, if I click on a link in facebook messenger that takes me to facebook, the back button takes me "back" to facebook's home screen instead of to the messenger app. Tapping back button again does nothing. I have to switch back to messenger manually. That's 5-6 taps/swipes instead of 1, because a product manager's bonus in FB depends on how well they beg for more engagement. As a result, I rarely use any of these products. I used to spend some time in Instagram/FB. I close LinkedIn immediately after an important interaction for similar reasons.

I made a mistake of buying another Samsung product after years. Never again. I made a mistake of buying another HP product, never again. I might still consider Dell only because of how well they supported me with their monitor flicker.

None of these products have a defect that's caused by poor design, programming, or manufacturing. They all suffer from growth-obsessed mindset.

Brother is what it is, not because of lack of innovation, but because of deliberate evasion of short-sighted greed.

>>aljgz+u4
> At some point there should be a mindset that our company is worth X dollars, and we should sustain that

Yes! What I see instead is a shoot-yourself-in-the-foot mindset. Its everywhere I see. I wish there was a way to see and fix this before its too late.

The right way to treat your loyal customers is also micro-intangible, hard to show clear numbers and so does not bear any rewards for a manager taking this approach. Instead, the opposite of screwing loyal customers for new ones is rampant, easy to cook up numbers and so amply rewarded not just limited to tech companies.

Unless the same management chain is responsible for new customers and leaving ones, this is an internal conflict of interest and its effects only show at the macro level.

I've seen many once-popular restaurants go this route, losing long time repeat customers who prefer well priced, familiar drinks and dishes over hit or miss exotic overpriced ones. They don't complain, they just stop coming back.

Car manufacturers, Appliance manufacturers, Food chains, Internet Service Providers, Telcos, tech startups are all guilty of this. Factions at MS, Goog, AAPL too are guilty.

Exceptions here are really really rare. I've never bought a brother printer, but it will be my next.