How the Tech Industry Stopped Building Things Customers Want

Seriously, when was the last time you waited in line to buy the latest and greatest tech product? When was the last time you got the email and clicked the link to learn more about the webinar for the software platform that would "take your business to the next level"? Have we become that jaded? Or does tech just suck now? It's a little bit of both. Many Symptoms, One Cause In a recent post, I dove into all the reasons why it's so much harder to start and grow a business in 2024. One of the reasons I gave is that the consumer has fallen out of love with technology. This isn't just gadgets. This isn't just market malaise, inflationary effects, or an extended gap between tech trends. This is a complete loss of the pulse of the customer, in both business and consumer tech products. I'm a lifelong early adopter and even a fanboy of new tech, and I can't name-drop the most recent version of iPhone, Pixel, Xbox, PlayStation, Quest, Tesla, or Mac/Windows/Watch OS--or, what's more important, explain why you should upgrade to it. At the same time, as a technology industry executive, I can't think of one functional piece of business software that I need to do a better job than it's doing today. In fact, I honestly can't think of any single platform you might take away from me and make my job harder. Maybe Zoom? And I can definitely name three or four of those same platforms, like Slack or Monday, that if you shut me out tomorrow, it would probably make my job easier -- more enjoyable at the least, as long as I had enough of a heads-up that I could spin up a Google doc to replace it. Oh! OK! Google docs! I could not function without them. That's kind of underwhelming though, right? What the eff happened to technology? The tech industry started telling the customer what they wanted They were wrong. I'm not saying that Sam Altman sits in his office, which I imagine looks like Darth Vader's chamber on a star destroyer, and is constantly thinking of new ways to shove chatbots down our throats. I'm not saying that. But in all seriousness, nowhere is this phenomenon more obvious and relevant than the stunted mass adoption of the electric car. For like the 13th time, too. I'll be the first to tell you that I'm a car guy and that electric vehicles ultimately make sense -- battery-material mining and coal-powered electricity are indeed problems that need solutions. The quest for mass adoption of electric vehicles has been a thing since that first day some rich guy got out of his golf cart at the end of a round and thought to himself, "We should put these on a highway at 80 mph." But until Tesla made electric vehicles that functioned as well as or better than ICE vehicles, no one took it seriously. Electric cars were always the metric system of transportation. But once more rich guys got involved and started leaning on green EPA standards and figuring out that they would need to build a robust fueling infrastructure themselves, and that they would need to sell those two things very hard without their necessarily being 100 percent true, a real, old-fashioned groundswell started. I mean, even I, back in 2022, said to myself, "This might be my last ICE vehicle." OK. Then everyone figured out the fuel isn't really clean and the infrastructure isn't really happening overnight, which means the bang isn't really worth the buck yet. And so now we're back to pickups and SUVs and Buc-ees is a thing. So just because a lot of rich and powerful people want change to happen doesn't mean the market will follow. The tech industry started relying on the customer to tell them what they wanted The customer was wrong. The customer is often wrong. I don't know how many times I need to say this. Don't get me wrong. I'm a proponent of listening to your customers and letting them help drive your direction. But, let me put it this way. If you're clutching your side and your friend says you might need to have your appendix taken out, you don't just hand them a scalpel and tell them to start cutting. Customers will always tell you what they think they want. Especially in tech. But customers rarely focus on the causes of their problems--they just know the pain and symptoms. You need a doctor. Tech companies have always been slow to hire people with the skills, experience, and knowledge to translate pain and symptoms into causes and solutions. They'd rather just start surgery right there in the street. Think about how many tech companies listened to the customer telling them that cable television was bloated and expensive. Google, Amazon, Apple, Disney, and all the media companies that wanted to become technified digital media companies got right on that problem. Speaking of old and overused product tenets, here's another, paraphrased: The customer doesn't want more choices, they want more confidence in their choices. Guess what the tech industry did. Spoiler alert: More choices. The tech industry followed the wrong trends Man, I know I keep beating up on genAI, but let's scream it again for the folks in the back of the room. THE CUSTOMER DOES NOT WANT GENERATIVE AI. At least not as it's being presented to them. Sorry about all the yelling. Look, I'm both pro and con on AI, less pro on genAI. I like AI. A lot. I'm just not sure how many more overpromised and underdelivered splashy headline genAI use cases the tech industry can keep flinging at the customer before they all throw their hands up en masse. Sexy trends die quickly. I mean, this just happened with crypto and NFTs, voice social networks, AR/VR, even wearables, 3-D televisions, and WeWork's whole work-is-life vibe. The boring trends are what's going to lead to long-term success. They produce tech that doesn't look like magic. It doesn't even look like tech. It's something that can seamlessly be integrated into people's lives without their having to sacrifice anything or work hard to get the benefit. That's what tech is supposed to do. And that's the real reason why the tech industry stopped building what customers want. Customers don't buy technology They buy the benefits of technology. Yeah, I could just stop this post here. But I think the reason the tech industry is seeing so little faith and hope from the customer is that it has forgotten what this means. I believe it's a "Well, yeah, but ..." problem. You keep telling the customer what they want. Well, yeah, but the early adoption is off the charts. You keep over-relying on the customer to tell you what to build. Well, yeah, but you're supposed to listen to your customer. You keep following the wrong trends. Well, yeah, but there's so much short-term gain there for the taking. You keep selling technology and not benefit. Well, yeah, but ... And here's where I think the tech companies keep punching themselves in the face. It used to be that tech things were produced by tech people and sold to other tech people. Then Grandma got a mobile phone because she had to -- she couldn't live easily without one. The tech industry has always had a disdain for the non-tech tech user. But tech isn't monolithic anymore, or as unified as it was even 10 years ago. My mother-in-law often comes to me with problems with her god-awful mobile phone. And I tell her, I can build an app for it, but I have no idea why you're not getting your email on it. This is where the tech industry is today. Every user is both a tech user and a non-tech user. My mother-in-law. Me. You. Every. Single. One. Until the tech industry figures out how to serve and sell to all of them, the mass malaise will continue. EXPERT OPINION BY JOE PROCOPIO, FOUNDER, TEACHINGSTARTUP.COM @JPROCO