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Comment by aroman | Hacker News Reader

I appreciate the input. All I can really say is that you have to remember elementary is not a business. We don't have investors. We don't aim for market share or target X number of users by X date. Fundamentally, we build what we think is best, and if other people find it valuable too, they use it. So far, it's worked.

So "user acquisition" isn't really a concern for us, though frankly, I believe it should be. And until it is, I guess we really can't complain about the flak we get for being "copycats".

And for what it's worth, I am an active user of both OS X and elementary OS and Switchboard feels 105% native on elementary OS. They each feel right in their native environment. Then again, I'm about as biased as possible (though I'd like to imagine my views are somewhat normative ;)).

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I don't really know what people are complaining about. You're making something amazing that people really really need, you are doing it with donations (as far as I understand, anyway), and it's not like you set out to copy Apple wholesale.

I think the benefits far outweigh any drawbacks (I can't really see any), so you'd probably do well to ignore the negative feedback and keep doing what you're doing.

>so you'd probably do well to ignore the negative feedback and keep doing what you're doing.

That's us, thank you.

Given the choice between doing what you're doing now and doing something better, what would you choose? Certainly I am not deriding the Elementary team for copying OS X. It's definitely 'not cool', but open source since GNU has always been about copying the hard work of others and the net effect in this case is that users get well considered graphic design for free (or $10 I suppose). I'm complicit in that, so we pass over it in silence. But I am trying to show that roughly copying another interface has a certain effect – beyond the inherited good properties of the original design – on the user that is problematic. Differentiating yourself from other products has a purpose beyond 'just being different': avoiding the uncanny valley.

In other words, this is constructive criticism. Don't ignore it because it's "negative" and you're doing something "positive". All progressive positive things are born out of a criticism of the existing state of affairs. Any effort can be improved. If you ignore criticism – not just mine – you are doomed to stagnation!

> So "user acquisition" isn't really a concern for us

Than why have you released the project to the public, made a nice website for it, made documentation, etc? Why do something good in the world if you don't care if it benefits people? Rather, if you've done something that you hope will benefit people in the world, don't you think you should try to benefit as many people as possible? The design choices you've made encode that goal, wittingly or unwittingly.

Indeed you are as biased as possible, which is why you have to listen to others if you hope to have any true understanding of your situation. Take what I said into consideration – it effects the spread and usefulness of your efforts whether you care or not.

Please don't put words in my mouth. There is a difference between "not caring if it benefits people" and making increasing our audience our #1 priority.

We care about spreading our efforts. We care about having a nice public face and benefiting as many people as possible.

I was reacting to the more crude notion of "user acquisition". That is absolutely NOT our goal; our goal is to build something great. I was viewing the term "user acquisition" as "focus on getting as many people to use our product as possible".

I think you mistook what I intended to say, and if I was not clear, I apologize. But please don't think that I'm saying we couldn't care less about spreading what we've created and making it beneficial to as many people as possible. I'm saying that we care deeply about building something great, and that is our primary focus, not convincing people to use it.

Ok, I understand. I was using the term "user acquisition" loosely to refer to the initial perception and evaluation of something vs. the experience of using it long-term, but that was not at all clear. Of course I don't think you are concerned with 'acquiring' as many users as possible. I just mean to emphasize that design impacts whether people will even consider using what you make, even people who may benefit greatly from it.

It looks intriguing, and I can't wait to try it out. Thanks for your hard work.

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