MadamImAdam
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I think we've all seen this pattern before:
1. Company announces an exciting new product at a great price.
2. Company estimates they'll be shipping this new product in X amount of time, which feels like "soon."
3. Because of the attractive features, price and estimated delivery date, people hold off on buying a competitor's product and wait for the promised new, better, cheaper product. Many of these waiters would not make this decision if the estimated time were 2X or 3X, but X doesn't sound too bad.
4. X amount of time passes. No delivery. Then another X amount of time passes. By the time the product shows up, it has been anywhere from 2X to 10X the original estimated period of time. If most buyers could go back in time and get an accurate estimate of the wait, they would definitely have made other plans. But the way the company played it, it always felt like "soon."
I would guess just about everyone here knows this isn't an exaggeration of reality. If you don't, just look at some old threads here. Heck, look at any thread that announces a new product along with a time estimate.
Perhaps it is impolite of me to point this out, but companies benefit when they do this to us. There is a strong incentive to estimate a delivery date that feels like "soon" even if they know -- or should know -- that there is a very low chance of that date being met. Companies can prevent people from buying a competing product if they can make people feel there is a substantial chance that a better one will be available "soon," or maybe just a little later than "soon."
It's not the fault of any company that it's difficult to create innovative new products from scratch, or that these endeavors usually take a long time. No company deserves blame for this reality. But what about denying this reality? Do people deserve whatever they get for being naive enough to believe that an estimated delivery date for an innovative product had any meaning whatsoever? Shouldn't these suckers have at least 3X'd the wait time in their heads instead of whining about the inevitable?
I would agree that whining about false estimates is as useless as denying that most estimates prove to be false.
But you know what would be better than this cynicism? If we had a way to gauge the company's confidence in their own estimate. There's surely a roughly quantifiable confidence level there behind closed doors -- we just don't know what it is. Does the CEO, in his heart of hearts, believe there's a 1% chance of meeting the deadline, or is it more like 50%? There's a big difference there. But how could we determine which it is?
Here's one idea: Financial incentive. You say that your $3000 product will be available in 30 weeks? Great. I'll give you $4000 for one right now. If you deliver the product to me by your deadline, you make an extra $1000 pure profit. But for every week that you miss your deadline, you have to send me $100 -- until you actually deliver the product to me.
A company with strong confidence that its stated deadline is realistic would take this deal in a heartbeat. A company that actually knew deep down that 60 weeks or 90 weeks was a much more likely estimate would never take this deal.
How could we find out how much confidence the company feels? They set the honored-estimate price. Are they asking for $4000 or $10,000? Now you know how they feel about their deadline.
Thoughts? Do we have a right to expect a company to give us a sober, thought-out, honest estimate, or should we always assume that we are being given false information? (Not necessarily outright lies, perhaps hope-fueled delusion. But the result is the same -- false information.)
Would you respect a company more if they offered the deal I outline above? Would you consider taking the deal?
1. Company announces an exciting new product at a great price.
2. Company estimates they'll be shipping this new product in X amount of time, which feels like "soon."
3. Because of the attractive features, price and estimated delivery date, people hold off on buying a competitor's product and wait for the promised new, better, cheaper product. Many of these waiters would not make this decision if the estimated time were 2X or 3X, but X doesn't sound too bad.
4. X amount of time passes. No delivery. Then another X amount of time passes. By the time the product shows up, it has been anywhere from 2X to 10X the original estimated period of time. If most buyers could go back in time and get an accurate estimate of the wait, they would definitely have made other plans. But the way the company played it, it always felt like "soon."
I would guess just about everyone here knows this isn't an exaggeration of reality. If you don't, just look at some old threads here. Heck, look at any thread that announces a new product along with a time estimate.
Perhaps it is impolite of me to point this out, but companies benefit when they do this to us. There is a strong incentive to estimate a delivery date that feels like "soon" even if they know -- or should know -- that there is a very low chance of that date being met. Companies can prevent people from buying a competing product if they can make people feel there is a substantial chance that a better one will be available "soon," or maybe just a little later than "soon."
It's not the fault of any company that it's difficult to create innovative new products from scratch, or that these endeavors usually take a long time. No company deserves blame for this reality. But what about denying this reality? Do people deserve whatever they get for being naive enough to believe that an estimated delivery date for an innovative product had any meaning whatsoever? Shouldn't these suckers have at least 3X'd the wait time in their heads instead of whining about the inevitable?
I would agree that whining about false estimates is as useless as denying that most estimates prove to be false.
But you know what would be better than this cynicism? If we had a way to gauge the company's confidence in their own estimate. There's surely a roughly quantifiable confidence level there behind closed doors -- we just don't know what it is. Does the CEO, in his heart of hearts, believe there's a 1% chance of meeting the deadline, or is it more like 50%? There's a big difference there. But how could we determine which it is?
Here's one idea: Financial incentive. You say that your $3000 product will be available in 30 weeks? Great. I'll give you $4000 for one right now. If you deliver the product to me by your deadline, you make an extra $1000 pure profit. But for every week that you miss your deadline, you have to send me $100 -- until you actually deliver the product to me.
A company with strong confidence that its stated deadline is realistic would take this deal in a heartbeat. A company that actually knew deep down that 60 weeks or 90 weeks was a much more likely estimate would never take this deal.
How could we find out how much confidence the company feels? They set the honored-estimate price. Are they asking for $4000 or $10,000? Now you know how they feel about their deadline.
Thoughts? Do we have a right to expect a company to give us a sober, thought-out, honest estimate, or should we always assume that we are being given false information? (Not necessarily outright lies, perhaps hope-fueled delusion. But the result is the same -- false information.)
Would you respect a company more if they offered the deal I outline above? Would you consider taking the deal?
