I once worked as a consultant to help users implement some software. I moved on to the development of that software, knowing the dozens of areas that could be improved to make life easier for the users, and honestly with little effort (it's a web app, I did that before the consultancy stuff). At that point in time, that was my dream -- I wanted to help make people's lives a little bit easier, and the people I helped would be those who used our software.
After around a year or so of implementing questionable features, I attempted to get approval for updates to old, well used features to improve them (stability and convenience focused, really), but was shot down. This wouldn't sell the software, because it worked well enough, and we needed more revenue more than retaining old customers. At that point I understood that after the software is sold the customer will be too ingrained into the product to leave without financial repercussions.
A while later, we got bought out by Big Company, so that strategy apparently worked. BC doesn't give half a shit about anything we ever did, and we piled on the features release after release with little concern about anything else. I tried a couple times after the buyout to get approved for existing product improvements, but always got shot down.
I continue to find it odd how the company can be so profit oriented, and yet so averse to improvements. I suppose I'm just wrong or don't actually understand. Either way, it makes it very hard to care about my work these days.
After around a year or so of implementing questionable features, I attempted to get approval for updates to old, well used features to improve them (stability and convenience focused, really), but was shot down. This wouldn't sell the software, because it worked well enough, and we needed more revenue more than retaining old customers. At that point I understood that after the software is sold the customer will be too ingrained into the product to leave without financial repercussions.
A while later, we got bought out by Big Company, so that strategy apparently worked. BC doesn't give half a shit about anything we ever did, and we piled on the features release after release with little concern about anything else. I tried a couple times after the buyout to get approved for existing product improvements, but always got shot down.
I continue to find it odd how the company can be so profit oriented, and yet so averse to improvements. I suppose I'm just wrong or don't actually understand. Either way, it makes it very hard to care about my work these days.