Replying to Avatar Silberengel

All products are designed to appeal most to the person or group of persons that have paid for them, either with effort or money (stored effort). That is the entity referred to as "the customer". The customer is the one who has purchased the product from the producer of the product, but it is possible for the customer and the producer to be the same person, or group of persons.

If a product appeals to you, and you did not pay for it, that is probably because the customer wanted you, "the user", to also find it appealing. Or, it is because you share the same taste or desires as the customer.

Always take note of who the customer is, as they will guide the product decisions going forward.
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Silberengel 1y ago

What does this mean, for devs?

It means that retaining control of the design is best done by remaining your own primary customer.

As soon as you are reliant upon a third party, to finance your development, you cease to be the primary customer, even if you are contributing much more in effort than someone else is in money. Money is greater leverage than effort, as it is more liquid and fungible, so it is easy to hold adding or removing it, all or in part, over the heads of the development team.

Since the person contributing this marginal capital has more effective control, they are the true owners of the product, even if they currently choose to leave you to yourselves.

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Silberengel 1y ago

Of course, sometimes you just need some money, and sometimes you don't really mind because you think your goals, and that of the external customer align enough to accept the risk, and sometimes the customer isn't contributing enough to the running costs to have much leverage over the development.

I'm just clarifying the situation, so that you are aware that you are making a decision, and what the decision is.