4 ms·

"Worse on purpose" is just "Minimum viable product"

by Schlagbohrer 3mo ago

piyuv 3mo ago
The definition of “viable” matters
hypercube33 3mo ago
It's just crapitalism - make thing as cheap as possible and charge as much as possible.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  What you call crapitalism is actually just capitalism.
Ker102 3mo ago
Its because of monopolies
tweakimp 3mo ago
The "minimum viable product" is part of the development process. If you are already at a certain quality and choose to make it worse, this is something else. Enshittification or just greed come to my mind.
- lotsofpulp 3mo ago
  The “minimum” means minimum price. There is a big market for the lowest price product in case a customer wants the lowest quality product because they only need to use it a couple times or for a trivial task. Buying a cheap tool at Harbor Freight first and then going for the more expensive tool is a good way to save money.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 3mo ago
    > The “minimum” means minimum price. But "worse on purpose" products typically decrease the quality (and cost to make) without decreasing the sale price to match. It's exploiting the product's reputation for being premium not minimum.
- ndriscoll 3mo ago
  Clearly it's just the start and end state of product development: make an MVP—the very worst thing people will buy, start to gain market share while you improve, reach market saturation, merge with competition, "value engineer" back to MVP—the very worst thing people will still buy.
SideburnsOfDoom 3mo ago
Not quite. "Getting worse" is discussing a mechanism where a product first has a good reputation, for good reasons. It's not "minimum viable". And then the company proceeds to exploit that reputation for all it's worth, by making the product cheaper to make, while keeping the sale price the same, knowing that it takes a long time for the reputation to catch up. But eventually it does and the brand is basically defunct. Used up and discarded, being drained of reputational value.

"Worse on purpose" is just "Minimum viable product"

piyuv 3mo ago

The definition of “viable” matters

hypercube33 3mo ago

It's just crapitalism - make thing as cheap as possible and charge as much as possible.

inigyou 3mo ago
What you call crapitalism is actually just capitalism.

Ker102 3mo ago

Its because of monopolies

tweakimp 3mo ago

The "minimum viable product" is part of the development process. If you are already at a certain quality and choose to make it worse, this is something else. Enshittification or just greed come to my mind.

lotsofpulp 3mo ago
The “minimum” means minimum price. There is a big market for the lowest price product in case a customer wants the lowest quality product because they only need to use it a couple times or for a trivial task. Buying a cheap tool at Harbor Freight first and then going for the more expensive tool is a good way to save money.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3mo ago
  > The “minimum” means minimum price. But "worse on purpose" products typically decrease the quality (and cost to make) without decreasing the sale price to match. It's exploiting the product's reputation for being premium not minimum.
ndriscoll 3mo ago
Clearly it's just the start and end state of product development: make an MVP—the very worst thing people will buy, start to gain market share while you improve, reach market saturation, merge with competition, "value engineer" back to MVP—the very worst thing people will still buy.

SideburnsOfDoom 3mo ago

Not quite. "Getting worse" is discussing a mechanism where a product first has a good reputation, for good reasons. It's not "minimum viable". And then the company proceeds to exploit that reputation for all it's worth, by making the product cheaper to make, while keeping the sale price the same, knowing that it takes a long time for the reputation to catch up. But eventually it does and the brand is basically defunct. Used up and discarded, being drained of reputational value.