Possible reasons for bad, new UI? Interesting article on ignorance against existing users

[Ftjwinfs]

For the last months many of us did not got tired of repeatedly complaining about the very bad design decisions that led to the Windy version v39. To name just the worst things: Layer list, location picker, auto-zoom... The App is being dumbed down from earlier capabilities.

Still, I simply do not understand the actual reasons for the bad design decisions.
So far, there was very little constructive response from the Windy team on our feedback. Most of the feedback went in the direction of "The Windy team thinks the new app is easier to use...". Well, I fundamentally disagree with that and as seen from many other users I'm not alone.

Today, I stumbled over an interesting short article that discusses the issue of software/apps getting worse and worse over time from the perspective of the long-term power-users.
The article explains that very often very little interest is in making the software actually better with respect to the needs of the existing users, but that the development is mostly driven by the urge to make new customers and catch them in a timespan of a few seconds when they first open the app.
I think, this perfectly matches what we see with windy. The interface is being "dumbed down" at the expense of the existing users.

@Windy-team, @Ondřej-Šutera I am really interested in hearing about your position with respect to the above. How do you prioritise the feedback and wishes from your existing users in comparison to the acquisition of new users?

Here the article: https://nothinghuman.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-marginal-user

Here an excerpt from the article:
"...
In my six years at Google, I got to observe this force up close, relentlessly killing features users loved and eroding the last vestiges of creativity and agency from our products. I know this force well, and I hate it, but I do not yet know how to fight it. I call this force the Tyranny of the Marginal User.

Simply put, companies building apps have strong incentives to gain more users, even users that derive very little value from the app. .... So the north star metric for designers and engineers is typically something like Daily Active Users, or DAUs for short: the number of users who log into your app in a 24 hour period.

What’s wrong with such a metric? A product that many users want to use is a good product, right? Sort of. Since most software products charge a flat per-user fee (often zero, because ads), and economic incentives operate on the margin, a company with a billion-user product doesn’t actually care about its billion existing users. It cares about the marginal user - the billion-plus-first user - and it focuses all its energy on making sure that marginal user doesn’t stop using the app.

Yes, if you neglect the existing users’ experience for long enough they will leave, but in practice apps are sticky and by the time your loyal users leave everyone on the team will have long been promoted.
So in practice, the design of popular apps caters almost entirely to the marginal user.
..."

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