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> Being "against" something is a valid goal in life, but then you really have to be very strategic about it. Being "for something" and pouring your energy into

> Being "against" something is a valid goal in life, but then you really have to be very strategic about it. Being "for something" and pouring your energy into making something that people want or need seems more productive. From the announcement: > but I'd rather spend my energy on making the non-commercial web more attractive. The author pretty explicitly states that they want to shift from an "against something" mentality (against disruptive content in proprietary apps, against the intended user-experience of those apps) to a "for something" mentality (building and supporting non-commercial services). I genuinely do not see the complaint. > With only 800 active users, letsblock.it obviously didn't have any measurable effect. Unless the author was planning on never making a popular project, I don't think this is a good way of evaluating direction or effort. In either case, putting in a huge amount of effort to support 800 active users who might otherwise (at least partially) shift their attention to better services seems reasonable to question. If we take it that there is any value in improving experiences for a small number of people, then there is equal value in making it more pleasant for those people to use Libre services. And of course that's even before asking about the opportunity cost. If an author can take the same amount of time they were devoting to this and instead build tools that make a Libre/Community service more attractive for 800 people, that's arguably a much higher impact activity on the health and growth of that service than wasting that effort trying to make proprietary platforms palatable. But again, if your point here is to focus in on a mission, starting with "nothing I build will have any impact on any of this" is just not really helpful at all. > Supporting the "non-commercial web" seems too vague in my opinion. A general mission statement/direction is often the first step towards narrowing down product ideas. I think making a decision in a direction (ie, pivoting from doing free UX enhancements for commercial companies towards saying, "I want to benefit services that don't feel exploitative") is a good place to start. Of course over time the author will probably narrow that focus, but this at least lays out a category that they can start looking into.

andsoitis 3y ago
> > Supporting the "non-commercial web" seems too vague in my opinion. A general mission statement/direction is often the first step towards narrowing down product ideas. I think making a decision in a direction (ie, pivoting from doing free UX enhancements for commercial companies towards saying, "I want to benefit services that don't feel exploitative") is a good place to start. Of course over time the author will probably narrow that focus, but this at least lays out a category that they can start looking into. This further emphasizes the lack of clarity, focus, and suboptimal strategy. When I read your assessment of their previous strategy "doing free UX enhancements for commercial companies" while the person is against commerce, I do not walk away with a sense that they have reconciled for themselves what is worth going after and so the non-specific "I want to support communities and applications that respect their users and value what we have to say." I predict will likely also have no registrable impact. I have more candid feedback for the author and that is to take a more clear look at how they evaluate themselves. They say "launching letsblock.it and keeping it running for over two years is a big success in my book." Instead they should call it what it is - a failure - and learn from it. Failure is fine, failure is great, even. They would be more successful by dreaming bigger and with more focus.
- danShumway 3y ago
  > When I read your assessment of their previous strategy "doing free UX enhancements for commercial companies" while the person is against commerce, I do not walk away with a sense that they have reconciled for themselves what is worth going after [...] > Instead they should call it what it is - a failure - and learn from it. I'm going to be really blunt here, it sounds a lot less like your critique is that the author isn't clear about their goals or that the author doesn't know how to evaluate themselves -- and more like your critique is that the author's evaluation of themselves and their goals doesn't match yours. Running any project with 800 users for 2 years as a hobbyist can be reasonably called a success. This reads a lot like how VC people will come into Mom and Pop shops and say, "this business is a failure, they just have years of loyal customers in a niche, what a disgrace! They obviously haven't thought enough about their product focus."
  - andsoitis 3y ago
    > Running any project with 800 users for 2 years as a hobbyist can be reasonably called a success. That's not success, and certainly not a "big success" which is the author's self-reflection. Unless the author's goal was to run something for 2 years, accumulate 800 users, and then shutting it down. > This reads a lot like how VC people will come into Mom and Pop shops and say I think they set out to make a big impact. That means growth, but doesn't imply commercial success.
    - danShumway 3y ago
      > That's not success, and certainly not a "big success" which is the author's self-reflection. Again, the author is not obligated in any way to align themselves to your definition of success. And them disagreeing with your definition of success is not the same thing as them being confused or not having thought enough about what they want. It might just mean they disagree with you. > I think they set out to make a big impact. That means growth No, not necessarily. Growth can be a component of impact, but they are not synonymous, and many highly impactful projects never see a lot of attention or direct growth -- they enable other projects to succeed or fix some of the many diverse pain points that subsets of users for those projects have.
deleted 3y ago
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andsoitis 3y ago

> > Supporting the "non-commercial web" seems too vague in my opinion. A general mission statement/direction is often the first step towards narrowing down product ideas. I think making a decision in a direction (ie, pivoting from doing free UX enhancements for commercial companies towards saying, "I want to benefit services that don't feel exploitative") is a good place to start. Of course over time the author will probably narrow that focus, but this at least lays out a category that they can start looking into. This further emphasizes the lack of clarity, focus, and suboptimal strategy. When I read your assessment of their previous strategy "doing free UX enhancements for commercial companies" while the person is against commerce, I do not walk away with a sense that they have reconciled for themselves what is worth going after and so the non-specific "I want to support communities and applications that respect their users and value what we have to say." I predict will likely also have no registrable impact. I have more candid feedback for the author and that is to take a more clear look at how they evaluate themselves. They say "launching letsblock.it and keeping it running for over two years is a big success in my book." Instead they should call it what it is - a failure - and learn from it. Failure is fine, failure is great, even. They would be more successful by dreaming bigger and with more focus.

danShumway 3y ago
> When I read your assessment of their previous strategy "doing free UX enhancements for commercial companies" while the person is against commerce, I do not walk away with a sense that they have reconciled for themselves what is worth going after [...] > Instead they should call it what it is - a failure - and learn from it. I'm going to be really blunt here, it sounds a lot less like your critique is that the author isn't clear about their goals or that the author doesn't know how to evaluate themselves -- and more like your critique is that the author's evaluation of themselves and their goals doesn't match yours. Running any project with 800 users for 2 years as a hobbyist can be reasonably called a success. This reads a lot like how VC people will come into Mom and Pop shops and say, "this business is a failure, they just have years of loyal customers in a niche, what a disgrace! They obviously haven't thought enough about their product focus."
- andsoitis 3y ago
  > Running any project with 800 users for 2 years as a hobbyist can be reasonably called a success. That's not success, and certainly not a "big success" which is the author's self-reflection. Unless the author's goal was to run something for 2 years, accumulate 800 users, and then shutting it down. > This reads a lot like how VC people will come into Mom and Pop shops and say I think they set out to make a big impact. That means growth, but doesn't imply commercial success.
  - danShumway 3y ago
    > That's not success, and certainly not a "big success" which is the author's self-reflection. Again, the author is not obligated in any way to align themselves to your definition of success. And them disagreeing with your definition of success is not the same thing as them being confused or not having thought enough about what they want. It might just mean they disagree with you. > I think they set out to make a big impact. That means growth No, not necessarily. Growth can be a component of impact, but they are not synonymous, and many highly impactful projects never see a lot of attention or direct growth -- they enable other projects to succeed or fix some of the many diverse pain points that subsets of users for those projects have.

deleted 3y ago

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