The unspoken "problem" you have is that your existing users are doing just fine with VLC.
If all you see is "growing" the userbase by nuking and reworking the user interface what happens to us your existing users?
As a direct example -
I use VLC primarily as a music player for my jazz album collection. It handles many formats I throw at it. It has a simple playlist (I play albums from start to finish and do not value a lot of spazzy track selection features).
I have a nice useable interface that works well. I ignore the stuff I don't need, I know WHERE the stuff I do need is.
I use VLC because it doesn't change much year to year unlike the vast majority of flash in the pan music players that go in and out of fashion.
If you privilege growth of new users you don't care that I know where things are and how to make them work. You just reorganize things according to some "designer" that is entirely growth oriented and doesn't care about me.
If all you see is "growing" the userbase by nuking and reworking the user interface what happens to us your existing users?
As a direct example -
I use VLC primarily as a music player for my jazz album collection. It handles many formats I throw at it. It has a simple playlist (I play albums from start to finish and do not value a lot of spazzy track selection features).
I have a nice useable interface that works well. I ignore the stuff I don't need, I know WHERE the stuff I do need is.
I use VLC because it doesn't change much year to year unlike the vast majority of flash in the pan music players that go in and out of fashion.
If you privilege growth of new users you don't care that I know where things are and how to make them work. You just reorganize things according to some "designer" that is entirely growth oriented and doesn't care about me.