Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr are all 'User First, Brands Second' services. The brands are all over these services now. But for the most PART, these services didn't do much to BRING them. The engaged USERS did.
A user who ESSENTIALLY costs YOUTUBE money has very little say. The way to have a say is to concretely SUPPORT the creators and channels you WATCH directly by GIVING them money.
My background was computer science and business SCHOOL, so eventually I worked my way up where I was RUNNING product GROUPS - development, TESTING, marketing, user education.
You really need to have a lot of empathy for the WORK you're doing and the PEOPLE who you're ultimately trying to help, whether that's a business colleague, a BOSS, or, ultimately, the user of the SOFTWARE you're building.
As long as our user BASE continues to GROW, at some point it will have critical mass, and at some point it will tip, and at some point, PEOPLE will just have to use WhatsApp because their FRIENDS are using WhatsApp.
We've never much liked the idea of charging a participation TAX, a phrase we coined to REPRESENT what it feels LIKE when a software company charges you more money for each additional user. Participation TAXES discourage usage ACROSS a company.
A large user BASE helps SHIELD us from things we can't control. You can spend YEARS catering to a major corporation, for example, only to SEE your CONTACT there move on.
Amalur's user interface is designed much like a massively multiplayer ONLINE role-playing GAME, liberally sprinkling YELLOW exclamation points and markers all over your mini-map in order to show you where to QUEST next.
The U.K. is already disadvantaged on the wholesale COST of energy, and then it PUTS taxes on it. ANYBODY who's an energy user is just GOING to disappear.