Questioning Everything

Feature Packing

Feature packing is what I call raising prices on the justification that you added a bunch of features that a) no one asked for and/or b) no one wants. This just happened with Vimeo. We got an email that we were being bumped into a new tier that was ~16x more expensive. They said, oh but we're adding these ten features. Hmm, except we really don't need those. They handled it well, giving us a discount for one year. Almost every platform that does something really valuable is adding tons of other rando features to capture your sunk costs.

Here are some eye opening stats for you via Matt Klein:

81% of Americans have acted against a brand in the past year because a product or service got worse. Not considered. Actually acted.

In the last year:

• 45% cancelled a subscription or stopped using a product or service entirely
• 38% decided to “never return” to a brand
• 35% delayed or avoided a purchase
• 35% left a negative review or told others
• 26% downgraded to a cheaper option within the same brand
• 24% defected to a smaller or local provider
• 17% spent more money with a competitor

Or the best...

• 12% switched to a more expensive, higher-quality alternative

Back to Basics

The post above is making a point about "techno-Orientalism" which I'm not even here to discuss. I'm here to rant about what the hell sense does this even make for a gym. I really am "questioning everything." This and other ads I see are so very far removed from the thing they are advertising it's not even funny anymore. How many of you would even remember what this was an ad for ten minutes from now? There's an easy solution: back to basics. Stop trading ideas for aesthetics. Figure out a strategy. Figure out what is good about the product or service and tell people about that in an interesting way. So many people will not admit they are selling the exact same thing as the other guy. They want brand to solve product/service problems, and this is what we get.

A Palate Cleanser

After all that, something warm and nostalgic. Here is some background on the Wendy's solarium:

2 Sides, 1 Coin

At then end of the day, AI is Engineering. So, why is there so much emphasis on using it for Design? For millennia Engineering and Design have been two sides of a coin. They complement each other. They need each other. If you saw my Cooking for Engineers bit, you can see how the Engineering part is great, but it needs Design. And the whole Swiss watch thing got me thinking about how some folks want Engineering to be superior. And what if a goal with AI is to be able to Engineer Design itself? And that's why it doesn't really work for that. They're two different things with different processes and different goals. They only work as two separate things, working together.