Listening to your userbase is a good idea if you want to keep that userbase happy. Ubuntu's goal has always been to vastly expand its userbase to, shall we say

Listening to your userbase is a good idea if you want to keep that userbase happy. Ubuntu's goal has always been to vastly expand its userbase to, shall we say, non-traditional Linux users. Now Ubuntu wants to expand into entirely new devices. These new users are, by definition, not in Ubuntu's userbase, so if Ubuntu wants to get them, listening to existing users is likely a detriment. If you've been using Linux with various DE for years, and Ubuntu frustrates you, then Ubuntu is not the product for you. Ubuntu is going for people who don't even know what a "DE" is. The instant Ubuntu becomes beholden to listening to its userbase is the instant it stops doing anything interesting and it loses whatever slim chance it ever had of being anything beyond a top ranker on DistroWatch. "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Not sure he ever said it, but the point stands.