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This gets down to a fundamental problem that crops up everywhere: How much is x willing to exponentially sacrifice to satisfy the long tail of y? It's grounds

This gets down to a fundamental problem that crops up everywhere: How much is x willing to exponentially sacrifice to satisfy the long tail of y? It's grounds for endless debate because it's inherently a fuzzy answer, and everyone has their own limits. However the outcome naturally becomes an amalgamation of everyone's response. So perhaps a post like this leads to a few more slim websites.

reaperducer 1y ago
How much is x willing to exponentially sacrifice to satisfy the long tail of y? Part of the problem is the acceptance of the term "long tail" as normal. It is not. It is a method of marginalizing people. These are not numbers, these are people. Just because someone is on an older phone or a slower connection does not make them any less of a human being than someone on a new phone with the latest, fastest connection. You either serve, or you don't. If your business model requires you to ignore 20% of potential customers because they're not on the latest tech, then your business model is broken and you shouldn't be in business. The whole reason companies are allowed to incorporate is to give them certain legal and financial benefits in exchange for providing benefits (economic and other) to society. If your company can't hold up its end of the bargain, then please do go out of business.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Nonsense. There are all kinds of businesses that target specific customer segments, and will even flat out refuse to do business with some others.
- sealeck 1y ago
  There's obviously some trade-off here: should your business support fax machines? Work on a Nokia brick? These are clearly impractical. But slow internet connection speeds are a thing that everyone deals with, and therefore it makes sense for your software to be able to handle them.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  > You either serve, or you don't. If your business model requires you to ignore 20% of potential customers because they're not on the latest tech, then your business model is broken and you shouldn't be in business. Or, at least the business needs to recognize that their ending support for Y is literally cutting off potential customers, and affirmatively decide that's good for their business. Ask your company's sales team if they'd be willing to answer 10% of their inbound sales calls with "fuck off, customer" and hang up. I don't think any of them would! But these very same companies think nothing of ending support for 'old' phones or supporting only Chrome browser, or programming for a single OS platform, which is effectively doing the same thing: Telling potential customers to fuck off.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  The vagueries of your post highlights the very problem I am addressing. What is an "older phone"? What is a "slower connection"? The bottom 20%? But the post at hand is talking about the bottom 3%, so where is the actual line? When you are in the hot chair, your hand in play, all those things need to be well defined lines. If I squeeze you to be more precise, it becomes uncomfortable and untenable, as no matter what you are either marginalizing people or marginalizing yourself, your company, or everyone else. It's something where it is extremely easy to have moral high ground when you have zero stake yourself, but anyone who understands the nuance of the problem can see right through it.
- throw10920 1y ago
  This is an insane moral system that 99.9999% of the world does not share. Approximately zero people are protesting because Gucci doesn't made a budget line of handbags that those below the poverty line can afford, or because car companies don't make cars that can be driven by quadriplegics, or because Google isn't making a version of Google Docs that operates through the post office mail for people without internet. Every service, whether from the government or from a company, has some implicit requirements attached to it. Any sane person can see that. Statements like "Part of the problem is the acceptance of the term "long tail" as normal. It is not. It is a method of marginalizing people." indicate a level of detachment from reality, and the fact that you have to use emotionally manipulative phrases like "does not make them any less of a human being" to make your statements even seem halfway plausible conclusively prove this line of argument is on the level of randomly-generated nonsense in terms of logical coherence.

reaperducer 1y ago

How much is x willing to exponentially sacrifice to satisfy the long tail of y? Part of the problem is the acceptance of the term "long tail" as normal. It is not. It is a method of marginalizing people. These are not numbers, these are people. Just because someone is on an older phone or a slower connection does not make them any less of a human being than someone on a new phone with the latest, fastest connection. You either serve, or you don't. If your business model requires you to ignore 20% of potential customers because they're not on the latest tech, then your business model is broken and you shouldn't be in business. The whole reason companies are allowed to incorporate is to give them certain legal and financial benefits in exchange for providing benefits (economic and other) to society. If your company can't hold up its end of the bargain, then please do go out of business.

SoftTalker 1y ago
Nonsense. There are all kinds of businesses that target specific customer segments, and will even flat out refuse to do business with some others.
sealeck 1y ago
There's obviously some trade-off here: should your business support fax machines? Work on a Nokia brick? These are clearly impractical. But slow internet connection speeds are a thing that everyone deals with, and therefore it makes sense for your software to be able to handle them.
ryandrake 1y ago
> You either serve, or you don't. If your business model requires you to ignore 20% of potential customers because they're not on the latest tech, then your business model is broken and you shouldn't be in business. Or, at least the business needs to recognize that their ending support for Y is literally cutting off potential customers, and affirmatively decide that's good for their business. Ask your company's sales team if they'd be willing to answer 10% of their inbound sales calls with "fuck off, customer" and hang up. I don't think any of them would! But these very same companies think nothing of ending support for 'old' phones or supporting only Chrome browser, or programming for a single OS platform, which is effectively doing the same thing: Telling potential customers to fuck off.
Workaccount2 1y ago
The vagueries of your post highlights the very problem I am addressing. What is an "older phone"? What is a "slower connection"? The bottom 20%? But the post at hand is talking about the bottom 3%, so where is the actual line? When you are in the hot chair, your hand in play, all those things need to be well defined lines. If I squeeze you to be more precise, it becomes uncomfortable and untenable, as no matter what you are either marginalizing people or marginalizing yourself, your company, or everyone else. It's something where it is extremely easy to have moral high ground when you have zero stake yourself, but anyone who understands the nuance of the problem can see right through it.
throw10920 1y ago
This is an insane moral system that 99.9999% of the world does not share. Approximately zero people are protesting because Gucci doesn't made a budget line of handbags that those below the poverty line can afford, or because car companies don't make cars that can be driven by quadriplegics, or because Google isn't making a version of Google Docs that operates through the post office mail for people without internet. Every service, whether from the government or from a company, has some implicit requirements attached to it. Any sane person can see that. Statements like "Part of the problem is the acceptance of the term "long tail" as normal. It is not. It is a method of marginalizing people." indicate a level of detachment from reality, and the fact that you have to use emotionally manipulative phrases like "does not make them any less of a human being" to make your statements even seem halfway plausible conclusively prove this line of argument is on the level of randomly-generated nonsense in terms of logical coherence.