First, I guess in almost any of my little Apps is at least one line of code written by Matt. In most there are more. Second, on most things he writes/tweets I agree with him.
But this time he is wrong.
It is not about trying to enlighten morons. In German we have this very fitting saying “Petz mal einem Ochs ins Horn” one could maybe translate with “Ever tried to pinch the horn of an ox?”
I agree, that would be wrong and accomplish nothing. Or, of course, even the opposite.
But having the chance to show your (potential) customers, that you care, that you take them seriously – is important. Very important. And most important of all, it would give developers the chance to correct all the bullshit people write in their shitty reviews. All the wrong facts that prevent people from buying Apps. All the nonsense people write – simply because they are even to stupid to find the Preferences or to access the Help menu.
And, of course, it would give us the chance to have at least some sort of contact/communication. Everything would be better than this one-way street. This would not be perfect and it never will be, no doubt.
But it is not about education or to point out what prime example of a moron wrote that review. No, answers should only be directed to every one else but the moron who wrote the review in the first place.
And we developers should never ever answer without taking a deep breath. Or twenty. We should wait at least for one day.
What I miss most about my own store and selling Apps directly – is the communication/contact and that was something, both parties benefitted from.
Yes, Matt is right. So many people always think someone is going to rip them off and on the App Store they must fear that a lot. It sure looks and feels that way. But I really don’t think the lack of communication will do the trick – will help both parties.
I suck at not getting angry about the stupidity of people – you know me and MOApp’s Law :–)
Morons, who are not even capable of handling the simplest App with one view and three buttons show an astonishing aiming accuracy for the one star rating.
But there are so many developers out there writing really good, calm and fair responses (and even I can try) and I think we deserve to be able to ‘communicate’ with our customers. At least in a very limited way…
