> probably one of the most common questions our support team would ingest was "can product X do thing Y?" which was even just a quick online search away. That'

> probably one of the most common questions our support team would ingest was "can product X do thing Y?" which was even just a quick online search away. That's a very biased way of looking at it. Just because some customers were confused by the feature list doesn't mean most customers were. You just never hear from people who don't have questions. > It justifies expenditures, can be correlated to growth/progress, etc. For specialized products, e.g., coffee makers, I have personal doubts that a substantial amount of buyers care much more than reading a few reviews to confirm that the product "makes good coffee" or " is easy to clean". The claim that feature lists can correlate with growth, but also that customers are not interested in feature lists, sounds like a contradiction to me. If customers are not interested in feature lists, then there should be no correlation. > What sells is what the company effectively SEO spams and price-points well within the market. Let's not forget Juicero's history and how well it sold until someone did the groundbreaking journalism of actually using the device and showing how ridiculous it was. Doesn't Juicero actually show the exact opposite? Despite all the advertising and multiple price reductions, Juicero was an absolute slow seller. > There are a lot of tricks that can be used to make hot garbage a top seller; Amazon is raking in billions doing just this and has been for years, despite constant outrage articles and proof of the garbage-ness of the services. There are few online stores with such a wide range of products and such fast delivery as Amazon. Garbage-ness is relative when everyone else is garbage-er. To me the "build what sells" theory sounds much more convincing than the "it's all about advertising" theory.