A 21st-Century Bill of Consumer Product Rights

Among the great innovations of the 21st century are products that are cloud-connected and update and improve automatically. For software, gone are the days of having to buy a new version of physical media (disks or CDs). For hardware it’s the magical ability to have a product get better over time as new features are automatically added.

The downside is when companies unilaterally remove features from their products without asking their customers permission and/or remove consumers’ ability to use the previous versions. Products can just as easily be downgraded as upgraded.

It was a wake up call when Amazon did it with books, disappointing when Google did it with Google Maps, annoying when Apple did it to their office applications—but Tesla just did it on a $100,000 car.

It’s time to think about a 21st-Century Bill of Consumer Product Rights.

Amazon: Down the Memory Hole

In July 2009 facing a copyright lawsuit Amazon remotely deleted two books users had already downloaded and paid for on their Kindles. Amazon did so without notifying the users let alone asking their permission. It was a chilling reminder that when books and content are bits instead of atoms, someone can change the content – or simply disappear a book – all without users’ permission. (The irony was the two books Amazon deleted were Animal Farm and 1984.)

Google—Well, It Looks Better

In July 2013 Google completely redesigned Google Maps—and users discovered that on their desktop/laptop, the new product was slower than the one it replaced and features that were previously available disappeared. The new Google Maps was worse then one it replaced—except for one key thing: its User Interface and was prettier and was unified across platforms. If design was the goal, then Google succeeded. If usability and functionality was a goal, then the new version was a step backwards.

Apple—Our Code Base is More Important than Your Features

In November 2013 Apple updated its operating system and cajoled its customers to update their copies of Apple’s iWork office applications—Pages (Apple’s equivalent to Microsoft Word), Keynote (its PowerPoint equivalent), and Numbers (an attempt to match Excel). To get users to migrate from Microsoft Office and Google Docs, Apple offered these iWorks products for free.

Sounds great—who wouldn’t want the newest version of iWorks with the new OS especially at zero cost? But that’s because you would assume the new versions would have more features. Or perhaps given its new fancy user interface, the same features? The last thing you would assume is that it had fewer features. Apple released new versions of these applications with key features missing, features that some users had previously paid for, used, and needed. (Had they bothered to talk to customers, Apple would have heard these missing features were critical.)

But the release notes for the new version of the product had no notice that these features were removed.

Their customers weren’t amused.

Apple’s explanation? “These applications were rewritten from the ground up, to be fully 64-bit and to support a unified file format between OS X and iOS 7 versions.”

Translated into English this meant that Apple engineering recoding the products ran out of time to put all the old features back into the new versions. Apple said, “some features from iWork ’09 were not available for the initial release. We plan to reintroduce some of these features in the next few releases and will continue to add brand new features on an ongoing basis.”

Did they think anyone wouldn’t notice?

Decisions like this make you wonder if anyone on the Apple executive staff actually understood that a “unified file format” is not a customer feature.

While these examples are troubling, up until now they’ve been limited to content or software products.

Tesla—Our Problems are Now Your Problems

One of Tesla features is a $2,250 “smart air suspension” option that automatically lowers the car at highway speeds for better mileage and stability. Over a period of 5 weeks, three Tesla Model S cars had caught fire after severe accidents—two of them apparently from running over road debris that may have punctured the battery pack that made up

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Author: Steve Blank

A prolific educator, thought leader and writer on Customer Development for Startups, Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur who teaches, refines, writes and blogs on “Customer Development,” a rigorous methodology he developed to bring the “scientific method” to the typically chaotic, seemingly disorganized startup process. Now teaching entrepreneurship at three major universities, Blank co-founded his first of eight startups after several years repairing fighter plane electronics in Thailand during the Vietnam War, followed by several years of defense electronics work for U.S. intelligence agencies in “undisclosed locations.” Four Steps to the Epiphany, Blank’s fast-selling book, details the Customer Development process and is increasingly a “must read” among entrepreneurs, investors, and established companies alike, when the focus is optimizing a startup’s chances for scalability and success. After 21 years driving 8 high technology startups, today Steve teaches entrepreneurship to both undergraduate and graduate students at U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Stanford University’s School of Engineering and the Columbia/Berkeley Joint Executive MBA program. His “Customer Development” teaching and writing coalesce and codify his experiences and observations of entrepreneurs in action, including his own and those he advises. “Once removed from the day-to-day intensity of founding a startup, I was able to observe a pattern that distinguishes successful startups from failures,” Blank says. In 2009, he earned the Stanford University Undergraduate Teaching Award in Management Science and Engineering. The San Jose Mercury News listed him as one of the 10 Influencers in Silicon Valley. In 2010, he was earned the Earl F. Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award at U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business. Despite these accolades, Steve says he might well have been voted “least likely to succeed” in his New York City high school class. Steve Blank arrived in Silicon Valley in 1978, as boom times began. His early startups include two semiconductor companies, Zilog and MIPS Computers; Convergent Technologies; a consulting stint for Pixar; a supercomputer firm, Ardent; peripheral supplier, SuperMac; a military intelligence systems supplier, ESL; Rocket Science Games. Steve co-founded startup number eight, E.piphany, in his living room in 1996. In sum: two significant implosions, one massive “dot-com bubble” home run, several “base hits,” and immense learning leading to The Four Steps. An avid reader in history, technology, and entrepreneurship who seldom cracks a novel, Steve has followed his curiosity about why entrepreneurship blossomed in Silicon Valley while stillborn elsewhere. It has made him an unofficial expert and frequent speaker on “The Secret History of Silicon Valley.” Steve’s interest in combining conservation with best business practices had Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appoint him a Commissioner of the California Coastal Commission, the public body which regulates land use and public access on the California coast. He also serves on the Expert Advisory Panel for the California Ocean Protection Council. Steve serves on the board of Audubon California, was its past chair, and spent several years on the Audubon National Board. A board member of Peninsula Open Space Land Trust (POST), Blank recently became a trustee of U.C. Santa Cruz and a Director of the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV). Steve’s proudest startups are daughters Katie and Sara, co-developed with wife Alison Elliott. The Blanks live in Silicon Valley.