This is pretty much corporate suicide. I really don't understand what they are trying to achieve with this and their attitude in this thread is baffling.
This appears to be a very desperate move by a company just realizing the desperate situation they find themselves in. I agree with others sentiment that they need to find a way to get back to doing well what it is they know, or used to know.
They're trying to have their cake and eat it too. Most companies would probably do the same given the same circumstances. It's disappointing but predictable.
Defensive comments like this reveal something deeper about a company. The leadership continues to believe that they couldn't have done anything differently that would change their current circumstance. This is a dangerous indicator that they'll continue doing the same things.
I think the point is that they've had plenty of time to get their shit together. Being proud of following best practices for a year when your company has been around for three decades is pathetic.
It's not clear they have a long term sustainable business model. They clearly have a problem with the cost of customer acquisition running up against the lifetime value of a customer. If they can't fix that then the model is dead.
Execution issues are just adding fuel to the fire.
They are still stuck in the mindset of “this is our proprietary secret and we can’t let others catch up.” That mindset is just one of the reasons their company is stagnating.
Definitely a sign of desperation. I imagine, stale board room meetings, lackluster performance in product development and an anxious board. Scott Thompson took this for a red flag and called it for what it is, a sinking ship.
Except this lacks in both grace and providing the company with any innovative, competitive, long term solutions, and definitely sets it in a bad light. I don't see any benefit to doing this.
There's an argument to be made that the company is doing harm to customers just by existing in such a precarious state. Anything that forces the technical leadership of the company to do the right thing or fail completely is actually better for customers in the long term.
Bit late to the game. Only when the company is in existential crisis it knows how to act. First step: restore trust with potential customers after gambling it all away with dirty sales tactics.
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