The Rise of the User (Death of the Customer)
I miss working in retail. Not for the horrible pay, long hours, and ridiculous red shirts, but for the very real human element. In the summer of 2006, I worked as a computer/camera/printer salesman for Circuit City right after graduating High School. When I signed up, I never thought it would be such a humanizing experience. I pictured just standing there and waiting until the customer was ready to buy something. But I was so wrong, I never knew people were so needy!
Everyday I was forced to start up a conversation with countless customers. I got to learn about their problems, computer related or otherwise. I got to hear about grandkids from grandmothers, collegiate hopes from protective fathers, and sometimes about what they wanted in a computer. I never knew there was so much story telling and small talk between money changing hands…
Fast forward to today, where I’m now a Software Engineer working in the height of another tech boom in Silicon Valley. I sit in front of a computer screen all day trying to posit how a user will use the software I’m building. I empathize with a fictitious abstraction in my mind to try to build a better product. I live inside my own mind.
Our users are nothing more than an ID number in a table somewhere. We have no customers, only numbers. DAU, MAU, Regs, etc. Where are the grandmothers, the proud fathers, and bratty teenagers? They’re out there somewhere, but it’s unlikely I will ever share a moment of humanity with any of them. Instead, I continue to build for the amorphous being inside my mind.
I miss customers.
Footnotes
DAU - Daily Active Users
MAU - Monthly Active Users
Regs - Registrations
