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Re:Show HN: Lite – A small, fast text editor by IAmEveryone on Saturday May 09, 2020 @07:01PM (#23128946)
A survey doesn’t eliminate subjectiveness, it merely averages over it.
Re:Show HN: Lite – A small, fast text editor by crazygringo on Saturday May 09, 2020 @08:11PM (#23129273)
You're missing the point.

When it comes to products, people's average evaluation is the objective answer. Because people's evaluations are what lead to usage, purchase, subscriptions, etc. There is no other "objective" answer.

There's nothing subjective about it. What users think about your product is your product in the marketplace. That's the entire meaning of "the customer is always right".

Satisfying user demand for a capability isn't a mathematics problem where there's some independently objectively right answer.

Re:Show HN: Lite – A small, fast text editor by the_hoser on Saturday May 09, 2020 @11:49PM (#23130150)
"The customer is always right." was a marketing slogan used by retailers in the late 19th century to convince people to shop in their stores. It doesn't mean anything.
Re:Show HN: Lite – A small, fast text editor by crazygringo on Sunday May 10, 2020 @12:43PM (#23133995)
That's its origin, but it's certainly been repurposed today in product design to mean a very real thing, which is that the customer will buy what the customer wants, regardless of whether you think they should or not.

In other words, there's no objective product goodness/badness. Only what the customer wants. In that sense, the customer (market) is always right.

Inexperienced restauranteurs often experience the same shock. You don't cook the food you want to make, or that you think people ought to eat -- you cook the food people want to eat. Otherwise you'll go out of business.

Re:Show HN: Lite – A small, fast text editor by the_hoser on Monday May 11, 2020 @03:06PM (#23145720)
It's created an inappropriate sense of entitlement for many consumers. You're absolutely right that a product will fail if people don't want it, but it's also true that people often don't get the products that they want because there's no way to deliver that product to them and turn a profit. In these cases, the customer is most certainly not always right.

It's a bad slogan that only portrays half of the reality of the situation.