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I explained this exact point to a friend today at lunch. He vehemently disagreed with me. No matter what the niche, or the market, there is always room for the

I explained this exact point to a friend today at lunch. He vehemently disagreed with me. No matter what the niche, or the market, there is always room for the simplest solution. Always.

dkrich 15y ago
That may be, but when the provider of said simple solution is simultaneously ratcheting up the price, people who are using the product will bleed over into other products. It seems to me that the people who are attracted to the most basic set of features will also have the least amount of pain shifting to a new product while having the lowest price elasticity.
- wisty 15y ago
  Apple does OK charging high prices for simple products. The target market is prosumers - people who pay a bit more for a product that is (or is marketed as) a joy to use. Most software engineers are prosumers, so you either target them or the enterprise. Now, "onion" products are better - they let the user grow from a simple base. But a simple product is a lot easier to make, which frees up resources for marketing or other products.
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    Apple doesn't typically raise prices - usually same price point and better hardware, more features, etc. The OP was taking issue with coming back to Basecamp and having to pay more than he used to, without getting any new substantive features. If Apple did this - raised their prices while also taking a 'less is more' approach wrt features, many of their most ardent supporters would eventually defect. re: basecamp - I knew several orgs in 2008-2009 that had paid versions of it. none of them liked it, but used it because it was something, and they were paying for it so it must be OK. I suspect that over time, BC will bleed enough paying users to the point where they'll reinvigorate the team and start adding more value. Then again, they may just raise the price and ride out their name brand making boatload of money for many more years to come.
  - peterarmstrong 15y ago
    Apple products are not simple. Apple products are extremely complex. Their genius is in making extremely complex things usable, so much so that they seem simple. If I make the world's simplest todo list, I have not made an Apple product. I have made a toy. If I make a phone into a tablet computer that is immediately understandable to a child, I have made an Apple product.
    - gbog 15y ago
      "Apple" = "genius" (OP) + prosumers love Apple (above) Can't we have a bit of cooling down on this Apple fan thing? The first and last Apple computer I booted myself did crash hard and there was no way to recover, go into BIOS, "hack" it if you will. Ok it was 10 years ago but still, when I see an Iphone owner I ask: show me your files, your music and pic files. Don't you /own/ these? How can you hack something if you don't have access to its files? When I mount my Ipod, I always wonder why tf they did rename all my music to F01.mp3, F02.mp3, etc. And because of this renaming there is a silly upper limit on the number of tracks I can hold on this said wonderful gadget (I use it because it has a 80G sized belly). We should be hackers here (and defend the positive meaning of this word given by pg, particularly now). I understand why a CEO would love to use a nice looking toy as their phone, even in a tech startup. But I feel any true hacker should/would feel imprisoned with any device that you cannot mount and scp to, right?
      - rimantas 15y ago
        Why would I care about files? I want to see a photo, I want to listen to a song, I want to open a document. I why would I want to hack it? I don't want to hack my car, I want to use it. Ok, I am an iPhone programmer, so I need to see below the surface. But the typical user does not. I am sure you know Clarke's law "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Do you know what makes it so? Invisible implementation details. File system is an implementation detail. RAM vs. ROM is an implementation detail which exists solely because of the technological limitations. The classics of UX argued about need to hide these details long before iPhone. Why do you think we see the rise of different "clouds"? Because they hide another layer of details. And yes, they move files you love so much further away from us. For the best, in most cases. The times when hackers and users were the same people a over. Hackers today must understand, that the users of their products are no longer other hackers (with exceptions, of course) so different rules applies. Normal user will not care about implementation details. They may scare him. What the user want is to pick your product up and just use it. Failing to understand that you fail as a hacker. On the other hand, succeeding to hide implementation from the users is a great hack.
  - dkrich 15y ago
    Maintaining a competitive edge with software that a small team can produce free of charge is a bit more challenging than a multibillion dollar hardware and software company with factories, no?
- bad_user 15y ago
  I disagree - nobody ever gave up email.

I explained this exact point to a friend today at lunch. He vehemently disagreed with me. No matter what the niche, or the market, there is always room for the simplest solution. Always.

dkrich 15y ago

That may be, but when the provider of said simple solution is simultaneously ratcheting up the price, people who are using the product will bleed over into other products. It seems to me that the people who are attracted to the most basic set of features will also have the least amount of pain shifting to a new product while having the lowest price elasticity.

wisty 15y ago
Apple does OK charging high prices for simple products. The target market is prosumers - people who pay a bit more for a product that is (or is marketed as) a joy to use. Most software engineers are prosumers, so you either target them or the enterprise. Now, "onion" products are better - they let the user grow from a simple base. But a simple product is a lot easier to make, which frees up resources for marketing or other products.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  Apple doesn't typically raise prices - usually same price point and better hardware, more features, etc. The OP was taking issue with coming back to Basecamp and having to pay more than he used to, without getting any new substantive features. If Apple did this - raised their prices while also taking a 'less is more' approach wrt features, many of their most ardent supporters would eventually defect. re: basecamp - I knew several orgs in 2008-2009 that had paid versions of it. none of them liked it, but used it because it was something, and they were paying for it so it must be OK. I suspect that over time, BC will bleed enough paying users to the point where they'll reinvigorate the team and start adding more value. Then again, they may just raise the price and ride out their name brand making boatload of money for many more years to come.
- peterarmstrong 15y ago
  Apple products are not simple. Apple products are extremely complex. Their genius is in making extremely complex things usable, so much so that they seem simple. If I make the world's simplest todo list, I have not made an Apple product. I have made a toy. If I make a phone into a tablet computer that is immediately understandable to a child, I have made an Apple product.
  - gbog 15y ago
    "Apple" = "genius" (OP) + prosumers love Apple (above) Can't we have a bit of cooling down on this Apple fan thing? The first and last Apple computer I booted myself did crash hard and there was no way to recover, go into BIOS, "hack" it if you will. Ok it was 10 years ago but still, when I see an Iphone owner I ask: show me your files, your music and pic files. Don't you /own/ these? How can you hack something if you don't have access to its files? When I mount my Ipod, I always wonder why tf they did rename all my music to F01.mp3, F02.mp3, etc. And because of this renaming there is a silly upper limit on the number of tracks I can hold on this said wonderful gadget (I use it because it has a 80G sized belly). We should be hackers here (and defend the positive meaning of this word given by pg, particularly now). I understand why a CEO would love to use a nice looking toy as their phone, even in a tech startup. But I feel any true hacker should/would feel imprisoned with any device that you cannot mount and scp to, right?
    - rimantas 15y ago
      Why would I care about files? I want to see a photo, I want to listen to a song, I want to open a document. I why would I want to hack it? I don't want to hack my car, I want to use it. Ok, I am an iPhone programmer, so I need to see below the surface. But the typical user does not. I am sure you know Clarke's law "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Do you know what makes it so? Invisible implementation details. File system is an implementation detail. RAM vs. ROM is an implementation detail which exists solely because of the technological limitations. The classics of UX argued about need to hide these details long before iPhone. Why do you think we see the rise of different "clouds"? Because they hide another layer of details. And yes, they move files you love so much further away from us. For the best, in most cases. The times when hackers and users were the same people a over. Hackers today must understand, that the users of their products are no longer other hackers (with exceptions, of course) so different rules applies. Normal user will not care about implementation details. They may scare him. What the user want is to pick your product up and just use it. Failing to understand that you fail as a hacker. On the other hand, succeeding to hide implementation from the users is a great hack.
- dkrich 15y ago
  Maintaining a competitive edge with software that a small team can produce free of charge is a bit more challenging than a multibillion dollar hardware and software company with factories, no?
bad_user 15y ago
I disagree - nobody ever gave up email.