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But what if I want a faster horse?

(rakhim.exotext.com)
1525 points saeedesmaili | 1 comments | 11 Apr 25 11:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.33s | source
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hackitup7 ◴[11 Apr 25 12:18 UTC] No.43652962[source]▶
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

This line is especially silly when making B2B products, especially very expensive enterprise ones. It's often used to justify building "great ideas" from some exec or overzealous PM/engineer over concrete asks from customers. Like you really think that a team of 20 experienced people paying >$1M to help run their multi-billion dollar business, both have no idea what they actually want and don't understand the capabilities of new technologies in the market? Totally condescending.

replies(2): >>43653009 #>>43654066 #
1. bluGill ◴[11 Apr 25 14:16 UTC] No.43654066[source]▶
What I don't like about the line is it only applies when there is a non-horse option. No amount of effort in 1600 would have resulted in either a bicycle or an automobile - there were too many needed things not available. In 1600 most people wouldn't have wanted a faster horse - sure they knew what a horse was but they couldn't afford to feed it and so they were not interested - a car is cheaper than a horse for nearly all uses.