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DAE read articles like this and think “why are we wasting so much time building nearly identical systems in software?” When an article says “it’s like this, but

DAE read articles like this and think “why are we wasting so much time building nearly identical systems in software?” When an article says “it’s like this, but” so many times I can’t help but think “why didn’t they just make that service more powerful or more configurable? Why does it have to be something completely new and specific instead of a versatile platform?”

pmichaud 6y ago
I think there are lots of reasons, some of which are unfortunate (eg. lock in), and some of which are great: we want a bunch of people trying novel things, and separately, one man's "versatile platform" is another man's "stagnant bloatware."
- chickenpotpie 6y ago
  The lock in part is the part that frustrates me. Full disclosure, I’ve never done any product management or run a company. I don’t understand how people can sit down and say “ok let’s build the worlds 200th todo app. We’re going to build it to be just like every other one with a small tweak and if we ever want to build it differently we’ll build the worlds 201st todo app.”
  - dgellow 6y ago
    Some users will care about the small tweak you mention. Maybe enough to have a viable business. As a user it’s good to have choice caused by competition.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
notatoad 6y ago
have you seen how users react to change? once a product has a decent sized userbase, it's essentially locked into it's current status unless you want to make a whole lot of people really angry. Airtable can't innovate on their original ideas anymore, the only way to evolve that product is for a competitor to make a new one. that's how we get better and better tools.
paxys 6y ago
Part of it is organizational dysfunction. Some executive sees that there is a gap that Microsoft can fill, and has the resources to build it. They can try and talk to teams at Excel, To-Do, Wunderlist, Sharepoint, Forms etc. and wrangle with all their different priorities and roadmaps - or they can just build and market it themselves. Very similar to how things work at Google.
positr0n 6y ago
If you build a versatile platform that can do everything you end up with Jira. Which many people love because it can do anything and many people hate for the same reason.
- chickenpotpie 6y ago
  I understand not building software that can do almost anything, using it would just be programming. But why not build applications that can be extended? Instead of a whole separate product it’s something that’s installed on top of it. I can flip a switch and todo becomes lists. I feel like we engineers spend to much time building fine tuned integrations instead of extensible platforms.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  > If you build a versatile platform that can do everything you end up with Jira. Or Salesforce.

pmichaud 6y ago

I think there are lots of reasons, some of which are unfortunate (eg. lock in), and some of which are great: we want a bunch of people trying novel things, and separately, one man's "versatile platform" is another man's "stagnant bloatware."

chickenpotpie 6y ago
The lock in part is the part that frustrates me. Full disclosure, I’ve never done any product management or run a company. I don’t understand how people can sit down and say “ok let’s build the worlds 200th todo app. We’re going to build it to be just like every other one with a small tweak and if we ever want to build it differently we’ll build the worlds 201st todo app.”
- dgellow 6y ago
  Some users will care about the small tweak you mention. Maybe enough to have a viable business. As a user it’s good to have choice caused by competition.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

notatoad 6y ago

have you seen how users react to change? once a product has a decent sized userbase, it's essentially locked into it's current status unless you want to make a whole lot of people really angry. Airtable can't innovate on their original ideas anymore, the only way to evolve that product is for a competitor to make a new one. that's how we get better and better tools.

paxys 6y ago

Part of it is organizational dysfunction. Some executive sees that there is a gap that Microsoft can fill, and has the resources to build it. They can try and talk to teams at Excel, To-Do, Wunderlist, Sharepoint, Forms etc. and wrangle with all their different priorities and roadmaps - or they can just build and market it themselves. Very similar to how things work at Google.

positr0n 6y ago

If you build a versatile platform that can do everything you end up with Jira. Which many people love because it can do anything and many people hate for the same reason.

chickenpotpie 6y ago
I understand not building software that can do almost anything, using it would just be programming. But why not build applications that can be extended? Instead of a whole separate product it’s something that’s installed on top of it. I can flip a switch and todo becomes lists. I feel like we engineers spend to much time building fine tuned integrations instead of extensible platforms.
AsyncAwait 6y ago
> If you build a versatile platform that can do everything you end up with Jira. Or Salesforce.