Updates, Half-Baked Products, and Marques Brownlee

Let’s face it. New Products Suck. From Games to Cars, things just seem to work less reliably then their predecessors now. As a Developer, I think I know why, and it should be pretty obvious even if you aren’t one if you look at the problem as a whole.

People that are industry vets, either making their own companies or in teams in their current ones, just seem to be putting out products that are just bad, and then suddenly as time goes on, they get better. Good examples being from the Video Game Industry, which is (where I think) the trend actually started.

No Mans Sky, was just over-promised at first. Back in 2016 they promised a whole slue of things that players would see and be able to do, with none of those things being possible at launch, but now most of those things are possible.

Image Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/InternetHistorian/comments/ep7077/the_spreadsheet_of_promised_features_in_ihs_no/

Just look at this Spreadsheet of things that was promised or mentioned before the game had launched, and If it was or is now in the game. Over Time the Game Received Updates and it turned out good, but at launch it was not good.

And If we are going to talk about Video Games that just Bombed at Launch then got better, we cannot ignore the ever growing 3d model of Cyberpunk 2077 that is probably still making some poor sod’s PS4 to sound like a whole airport by now.

I’ll be surprised if you haven’t heard of Cyberpunk 2077, though I can get it if you’ve forgotten, but either way, it was a horrible glitchy mess, especially on console, to the where Sony pulled it from the store, and Refunds were allowed for a long while from both Sony and Microsoft. and then now if you buy the game and play it, the game is actually really good, and there’s even a new DLC! Which first introduced even more bugs, which then got patched out later.

And Sure, if it stopped at games, no one would actually pay much attention. But unfortunately more and more industries started using software to control everything, from Virtual Reality Headsets to the Cybertruck and even the Rabbit R1.

7 Blocks of Text in and 2 weeks of procrastinating this piece later, we are finally getting to the second half of the post.

2 Weeks ago I watched Marcques Brownlee’s video on the Rabbit R1. Now Personally, looks aside the Rabbit R1 is functionally useless, and as multiple people have already found out over the last two weeks, was basically an APK on a stripped down version of Android.

Quick Side Tangent. Personally I think all of the shit people are giving the R1 over being a glorified bootloader for an APK is stupid. Yes, this could have been an app, and I don’t agree with the company saying that “the Rabbit R1 was designed specifically with the software included with it, and that shouldn’t be run outside of that environment”, when clearly it was shown to run perfectly fine with a normal phone.

Now that we know more about Rabbit, and it’s Shady Origins as a NFT Company, this has only strengthened my belief that the team behind this product weren’t looking to develop a whole version of Linux just for this device. It’s easier and more cost effective to just build a Application for something that already has tools for it then build it entirely from scratch. (minus the core functions of linux, obviously. I don’t think anyone sane enough would literally develop a whole operating system for 1 product that interfaces with a required server connection.)

Rabbit’s Reaction to people finding out that the R1 is a glorified bootloader for an App may have been shitty, but so was the shit people were giving Rabbit about it as well. ChromeOS has 3% of the Consumer Computer Market Share, and It only provides a fuckin web browser!

Anyways, back on topic. When I got to the What Are We Doing Here? Portion of the Video, It made me fully realize how bad products have gotten. Companies now focus on releasing a Minimum Viable Product, instead of going all the way and making a fully Baked product, and hoping that everything works out a few months down the line while they actually complete the product. Sure It’s out there, perhaps it was good, but it could have been better out the gate if these companies gave the teams more time, and let them finish implementing and finalizing features.

Yes, there has been some companies that have pulled it off with certain products, but it shouldn’t be the norm. Updates were supposed to be features and fixes added on to a finished product, not the product itself. and when the product itself isn’t fully done at launch, it makes it hard to evaluate whether a product is worth buying or not. Not only does it make it hard for the Consumers and the Informers (Reviewers, Youtubers, Etc.), but I think it can actually hurt the company as well.

If Buyers can’t make a informed decision on a product, they might not even buy it, and that could drive down sales of that product, and when that happens, that basically is the deathblow to a product, unless the company in question cares about enough to keep working on it. What could have been a awesome product is now dead in the water because some people thought it was ready when it was probably, and sometimes clearly not.