Re:Tyranny of the Marginal User: why software gets worse, no...
by Kretinsky on Friday September 15, 2023 @04:57PM
(#37529040)
It really depends on how you frame your app.
In the case of OkCupid, I did buy the premium offer, and used the possibilities (mainly see the answers to the quizz, and filter people) to make a profile that would show 99% match score with the kind of women I was looking for.
At some point, it got close to a game, which was very fun and satisfying as I could meet nice girls as a result ;-)
Apps are not developed for the sake of the users. Apps are developed in order to make a profit.
If your higher intellect users are not ready to pay good money for your product, it can only be one of two things: either they are cheap, or your product is not that great. Considering that there is no correlation between intellect and cheapness, I would exclude the first hypothesis.
Then you end up with a crappy product (and it was your higher intellect users who voted it crappy) and a bunch of advertisers ready to pay you bread crumbs for your users' attention, and you suddenly realise that you need a lot of crumbles to get a sandwich.