Feel vs. Features: The iPhone Now #1 in Japan

There is one pattern that we must learn to identify and guard against, and
it goes like this:

1. A small group of smart and progressive types set out to create something
   brilliant. They build a system that produces excellence, as long as the
   original concepts continue to be endorsed and nurtured by those who
   participate.

2. The experiment is a success, and the community grows exponentially.
   Others see the genius in the system and they both emulate it as well as
   show up to participate. This is mostly a good thing, because people who
   show up at this stage are like-minded and simply add numbers to
   something that’s good.

3. Fast forward. Now, it becomes obvious to the rest of the world that this
   system 1) makes it easy to influence the system, and 2) pays off well
   when you’re a member.

4. The late comers proceed to poison the ecosystem by injecting low-quality
   and/or dissimilar content into the stream. Much of this is now coming
   from those who don’t know about or embrace the original ideas that went
   into the creation of the community; they are there for the benefits
   alone.

5. Many of the smarter, more progressive types will pick up and look
   for/create another community where they don’t have to be constantly
   assailed by low quality. They leave in massive numbers, heading for
   somewhere more like what they helped build.

See: Digg, Reddit, Hacker News, and the United States.

This failure occurs for two primary reasons:

1. Creative people are often progressive compared to the general
   population, and as such they tend to resist classifying people and
   behaviors in ways that could be offensive. Because of these liberal
   tendencies hey resist the idea of setting a standard for quality, or
   even of explicitly identifying the things that make their system great
   for fear that it may imply someone else’s things are less great.

2. Having failed to properly identify what makes them special and
   successful, they are therefore unable to guard those attributes from
   erosion. So when x, y, or z takes place that seems to be a
   quality issue, they are unable to discern whether it goes against their
   core identity or whether it’s just another example of diverse input.

The result is always the same: If there is no standard, the community will
suffer. The same traits that made the community great in the first place
(progressive thought) is what prevents them from enforcing behavior that
will maintain that community. In sum, we’re fated to continue this cycle of
creating great new things only to dilute them into banality.

The United States is now full of people who haven’t read a book since high
school, think Jesus is coming back soon, don’t believe in evolution, and
don’t know the name of their congressional representatives. And Hacker News
is becoming more like Reddit every day.

Hopefully we’ll figure out this simple concept one day: 1) take note of what
made something successful, 2) don’t be afraid to refer to those attributes
as an identity, and to defend them.

[ Aug 19, 2010 ]