Democratic vs Single-Party Product Development

How two opposing development methodologies parallel the world’s largest economies.

The leading consumer technology platforms, iOS and Android, have opposing development philosophies that parallel the world’s largest economies. Apple, like China, has grown rapidly thanks to consistent adoption of governing philosophies that also align with the state’s proletariat’s agenda. Android, like the West’s modern economic dominance, has been enabled by the steadfast upholding of (platform) freedoms. Both governing philosophies have strengths that can be mirrored for developing successful consumer products.

Single-Party State: A Stubborn Walled Garden

Much is misunderstood about how the People’ Republic of China governs its people. While Communist is the most accurate description of its proletariat’s philosophy, its fundamental approach is to align the country with any philosophy quickly and completely. This absolute control governance model is plagued by abuses and leadership missteps but what China has been refining for decades is an agile, economically prosperous model that is quick to adopt new ideas that maximizes efficiency.

China seems to be content with displacing a minority of citizens for swift projects that are expected to benefit the majority of its people.

There are more specific parallels with China’s approach to governance and Apple’s product development philosophy. Both are quick to adopt technologies and processes that align with their goals. China, for example, has been aggressively installing high-speed rail accross the country to better connect its huge population. Right-of-way acquisition does not appear to be a concern for any project because land usage is at the state’s discretion. 60 Minutes reported on disenfranchised citizens becoming homeless after major construction efforts displace them and their livelihoods. China seems to be content with displacing a minority of citizens for swift projects that are expected to benefit the majority of its people.

In 1978, China introduced economic reform that incorporated Capitalism, entrepreneurism and the dissolution of state-owned markets, such as agriculture. Since then, China has become the second largest economy in the world. This reform was possible because of the proletariat’s ability to adopt new forms of governance quickly and absolutely. Since this reform, China has reversed some original reformational measures and adopted new strategies. Currently, China promotes proven government officials based on competency and efficacy–not unlike any successful corporation or business. While this approach to appointing officials is not democratic, it does enable accountability and efficient governance–something with which democratic states struggle to mirror.

Apple is able to swiftly adopt technologies that enable product design and experience goals for all their products. A focused, philosophically ideal proletariat at Apple (the design teams) can make similarly absolute decisions about the direction of their products. No bureaucracy, no compromise and no unnecessary deliberations are required of the single-state approach to execute their ideas. This maximizes efficiency which is a market advantage.

Apple is able to move swiftly and absolutely on any decision made by its leaders because of its single-party product development system.

Since 1997, Apple has been led by a single-party proletariat focused on simplicity and premium hardware development. While the decision-making process at Apple is opaque to outsiders, its product designers have historically been specific about the vision of each product, adamant about what any product does not do as much as what it was designed to do. While there are many reversals to most product’s feature implementations due to customer requests (such as copy and paste in iOS 3), Apple has been consistently stubborn with its product design decisions and reluctance to implement features simply because its customer request them. Apple’s products do not inherently have to be proprietary and its business operations opaque, but there is a market advantage in product differenciation and financial benefits when leveraging economies of scale. Regardless of the motivation for any given feature implementation, Apple is able to move swiftly and absolutely on any decision made by its leaders because of its single-party product development system.

While Apple’s customers and China’s citizens undoubtedly inform both parties’ approach to governance, both are stubborn, walled gardens who sacrifice short-term discomfort for the relentless pursuit of achieving their respective goals. They act with their goals being of primary importance, often justifying the calculated disenfranchisement of a minority and limited accountability.

Democracy: A Sluggish Ideal

Many in the West value freedom as the primary right from which their countries should be governed. Moreover, democracy is seen as the most fair and effective means of governing a free people.

The Android operating system was founded, and is currently developed, with the freedom to alter, iterate and build upon a community’s collective work which benefits those in that community. This democratic approach to product development is largely transparent with equal access to resources and vision.

Historically, freely developed software software has created industries and made existing industries more efficient. However, these industries are often plagued by terrible user experiences. High technical proficiency requirements, poor interface design, and lethargic development cycles are common realities in the open-source development community.

The United States of America, and perhaps other Western democracies to a varying degree, often experience legislative turmoil do to a necessity of compromise. Any successful bill signed into law can be seen by many voters as a much smaller step towards the intended change. Law making and software development experience different constraints but the effect is similar: too many (often opposing) interests all vying for consideration at the same time. The result is often a great idea with a diluted product experience.

The democratic model is a sluggish development philosophy that easily slips into conflicting goals with user-alienating compromise. Even prominent open-source development communities such as android.com have established standards which protect the user from unnecessary feature fragmentation.

Open-source and democracy share ideals founded on moral human rights that rarely translate to enjoyable user experiences.

Open-source and democracy share ideals founded on moral human rights that rarely translate to enjoyable user experiences. Both are slow to adopt new technologies and development methodologies that align with their philosophy do to their communally compromising nature. While any specific product or law can be a champion of democracy, most experiences are plagued by slow compromises that leave the user ever-craving a more effective solution.

The Solution

Any product development methodology will have varying degrees of the above (and other) philosophies. (Even the above philosophies are not absolute in practice.) Breakthrough ideas and prototypes clearly begin in the open-source community but successful/mainstream and delightful product experiences are brought to market by small, focused groups with specific goals.

Design goals are a requirement to shipping great product. Those goals should be informed by the technologies available, ideal circumstances and decisive action. No product is ever perfect when it ships because really, what does ‘perfect’ even mean?

The solution should be accessible products iterated upon with continued focus on better experiences for the users. Only until iterations turn less productive do we collectively, as builders, seek next generation product paradigms.

- Sam Dominguez