Because management decisions ain't always driven by logic.
The simplest reason may be attachment to the feature--the feature is of no use but the person who's invented it is scared by the possibility of removing it.
Totally agree. The last company I worked for would agree to add basically any feature someone requested, even if it was of no use to anyone else. Most of the time spent implementing these odd features was making sure they'd work with all the other possible combinations of odd features, just in case they were ever used in tandem. They never were. The project I worked on was in its 4th total overhaul when I left, and they still hadn't actually sold a single copy.
Plus, like, OK, imagine I'm an engineer. "I don't think customers would like this feature. In fact I think it's against their interests." "We appreciate your concern, but we've judged that this feature actually benefits customers, so please implement as specified." Discussion over.
The most effective thing the team behind this feature did to drive adoption was to threaten to remove it. More people know about this feature now than ever would have through traditional marketing tactics.
The worst kind of feature creep is the kind mandated by your own customers.
And not "we want a menu here" but "we need a transcoding mode that allows us to specify the stream PIDs directly, and if we don't get it, we're not buying".
And when a million dollars is on the line, even if nobody else will use that feature, you can't really refuse.
The kind of jack-ass feature that's been carefully kept by its creator despite a number of people doing exactly what you did and then complaining about it. I've honestly got no idea why.
I feel either you didn't grasp the context of my post or I didn't go far enough in detailing why I felt it's an inappropriate feature for them to push.
Mr Clueless X didn't want the feature because he read it off an Ouija board. He wanted it because sales told him "this feature could make us millions of dollars a year!", or a customer asked him "how could you possibly sell your product without this critical feature?".
Without a Mr. Clueless X in the way, it would be presented as your fault that the company lost suchandsuch major deal by not already having the feature. That's a much harder political game to play.
I get the psychology behind it - it increases impulsive spending - but to tell the users that it's the number one requested feature and then say 'yeah, fuck you'... that's pretty poor.
That's seems to be a strange stance to take. "Everyone" wants to turn on those features, except for you. And you expect them to turn off those features? heh
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