Counter to your statement, "A developer is not a subject matter expert on how to market a product": Most development experience I have had (open source, exclus

Counter to your statement, "A developer is not a subject matter expert on how to market a product": Most development experience I have had (open source, exclusively) comes with continual interaction with, and and feedback from, a subset of users who use the software. This subset is populated mostly by power users, those who rely on the software for work, and those who use it regularly. They are the ones who understand which needs the software is meeting and which it is failing to meet, and who ask for intelligent and sensible features to be added. The marketing departments don't have this built in compass. They create ideas that they think will be profitable to the company, and they simply don't have the necessary connection with the users and with the software to know which of these ideas will be perceived as awful by the user. The ones creating the software are the subject matter experts on what that software should do, how it should behave, and what the users will find most useful, in this instance. The marketers are subject matter experts on... Other stuff? Advertisements and buzzwords and increasing revenues by targeting certain demographics of peoples? I have experience with the marketing side of business that has perhaps reflected poorly on that profession, so I'd love to hear from anyone that can fill my knowledge gap.