Monitoring user conversations about your product is absolutely critical, IMHO. Even if you don't directly interact with them, just seeing their chatter can be i

Monitoring user conversations about your product is absolutely critical, IMHO. Even if you don't directly interact with them, just seeing their chatter can be invaluable. Often times you, as the developer, will spot clues among their rambling that point to actual fixable issues. Meanwhile, these same clues will get completely filtered out and ignored if there's any sort of "user support layer" acting as an intermediary. Sure, there's a lot of chaff to filter through. As such, its okay if you don't want to be the one interacting directly with the users 99% of the time. But simply paying regular attention to what they're saying is worthwhile.