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Sure but if those customers are 1% of your revenue and 30% of your tickets then they're customers you want to lose and it's not particularly callous to want to

by nailer 4y ago

Sure but if those customers are 1% of your revenue and 30% of your tickets then they're customers you want to lose and it's not particularly callous to want to feed your family.

JohnFen 4y ago
Sure, but that's not the case for every business. I'm not saying that everyone needs to keep legacy support in mind. I'm saying that just taking the attitude of "it's old, too bad" is not good blanket practice. It all depends on what you're doing. > it's not particularly callous to want to feed your family The callous part is taking a disdainful attitude toward those customers.
- nailer 4y ago
  > The callous part is taking a disdainful attitude toward those customers. I guess I thought it was obvious that most of the the time someone doesn't want to support legacy it's for this reason, not because of disdain for them.
  - jrumbut 4y ago
    That's what disdain is though (in a very literal sense), not feeling that someone is worth your time or consideration. Your disdain of legacy clients might be profitable or understandable or even morally just, but it's still disdain.
    - nailer 4y ago
      > disdain somebody/something to think that somebody/something does not deserve your respect or interest OED. You can respect someone but know their business isn’t worth your effort.
      - jrumbut 4y ago
        I get the sense that a lot of words have become generally mapped to "good" and others generally mapped to "bad" and it becomes difficult to have a nuanced conversation, especially around the not-uncommon situation where you disagree with or even dislike someone without holding the opinion that they are a bad person.
zopa 4y ago
> it's not particularly callous to want to feed your family Callous is callous regardless of your motive. It might be justifiable to be callous if that's what your business circumstances demand, but that doesn't change the effect on those customers.
ykonstant 4y ago
> it's not particularly callous to want to feed your family. Jesus Christ, you just put x in front of the variable!
lanstin 4y ago
Weirdly tho the legacy business is often a lot higher than the growth business at any point in time. It is often the case that orgs won’t break down the costs this way, but if growth has a lot of potential in the future, legacy is paying off previous growth bets now. So don’t piss off half your profits because you are more focused on what to you is the bright shiny new thing that you have high hopes for. Nonetheless, having read the fine article, I will stop using he x construction, which I find myself typing from time to time just out of habit.
tetha 4y ago
The thing is, that's working like partially taking antibiotics. In B2B, you often end up with a customer on an old, customized system making 10% of your revenue. Dropping that often isn't an option.

by nailer 4y ago

Sure but if those customers are 1% of your revenue and 30% of your tickets then they're customers you want to lose and it's not particularly callous to want to feed your family.

JohnFen 4y ago

Sure, but that's not the case for every business. I'm not saying that everyone needs to keep legacy support in mind. I'm saying that just taking the attitude of "it's old, too bad" is not good blanket practice. It all depends on what you're doing. > it's not particularly callous to want to feed your family The callous part is taking a disdainful attitude toward those customers.

nailer 4y ago
> The callous part is taking a disdainful attitude toward those customers. I guess I thought it was obvious that most of the the time someone doesn't want to support legacy it's for this reason, not because of disdain for them.
- jrumbut 4y ago
  That's what disdain is though (in a very literal sense), not feeling that someone is worth your time or consideration. Your disdain of legacy clients might be profitable or understandable or even morally just, but it's still disdain.
  - nailer 4y ago
    > disdain somebody/something to think that somebody/something does not deserve your respect or interest OED. You can respect someone but know their business isn’t worth your effort.
    - jrumbut 4y ago
      I get the sense that a lot of words have become generally mapped to "good" and others generally mapped to "bad" and it becomes difficult to have a nuanced conversation, especially around the not-uncommon situation where you disagree with or even dislike someone without holding the opinion that they are a bad person.

zopa 4y ago

> it's not particularly callous to want to feed your family Callous is callous regardless of your motive. It might be justifiable to be callous if that's what your business circumstances demand, but that doesn't change the effect on those customers.

ykonstant 4y ago

> it's not particularly callous to want to feed your family. Jesus Christ, you just put x in front of the variable!

lanstin 4y ago

Weirdly tho the legacy business is often a lot higher than the growth business at any point in time. It is often the case that orgs won’t break down the costs this way, but if growth has a lot of potential in the future, legacy is paying off previous growth bets now. So don’t piss off half your profits because you are more focused on what to you is the bright shiny new thing that you have high hopes for. Nonetheless, having read the fine article, I will stop using he x construction, which I find myself typing from time to time just out of habit.

tetha 4y ago

The thing is, that's working like partially taking antibiotics. In B2B, you often end up with a customer on an old, customized system making 10% of your revenue. Dropping that often isn't an option.