> The timing wasn’t right. We depended on artists helping us to promote the platform, and they didn’t.

There's a certain arrogance to believing the timing "simply wasn't right". It looks really bad if you try it with any recent controversy:

* "The timing wasn't right to charge people for heated car seats"

* "The timing wasn't right to make Photoshop a subscription service"

* "The timing wasn't right to increase fees"

It's a way of talking yourself away from the fact that what you are making may, inherently, be disliked. The cited survey even seems to have been read as favourably as possible:

> Surveys consistently showed that consumers believed artists deserved payment when AI generated content in their style.

This doesn't mean people want artists style to be generated by AI. It could mean they think it's horrible, but if it happens they should at least be compensated for it. In fact, the quotes survey even says 43% believe companies should ban copying artists styles. I could make the exact opposite argument with the same data:

"Many consumers believe companies should ban copying styles, and this may be a more common opinion than measured as most people have no experience with modern AI tools and therefore no chance to have made an opinion yet. What is known is that the majority believe that if artists were to be copied, they should at least be compensated"

edit: formatting, typo

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raincole 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Making Photoshop a subscription service was an extremely successful business decision, so I'm not sure what the comparison is supposed to mean here.

I say this as someone who switched to Krita and canceled CC subscription.

	▲	noosphr 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Enshificstion kills companies slowly, then all at once.

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codemog 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s not arrogant to be firm in your beliefs. You’re not arrogant for believing the timing is never right. You may even be 100% right, but you don’t have to belittle or put down the other side. In this case, they already lost, what more do you want?

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petterroea 2 hours ago | parent [-]

How is it not arrogant to be firm in your belief, even if signals say otherwise? If I believe it is OK not to shower, and everyone around me complains about it, is it not arrogant of me to ignore the signals because "they just don't understand yet"?

I think a much more useful question is whether some arrogance is necessary to succeed. I personally think it is. But we are discussing a post mortem here, and the author is (in my opinion) clearly beating around the bush and using "the time wasn't right" to hide what may be uncomfortable truths.

Is a post mortem valuable if it doesn't address these face first? I am not the one with all the answers here, but what I am used to in mature tech teams is that the uncomfortable parts are usually the most important in any post mortem.

There are plenty of stories about companies that failed because the timing was wrong, and then see another company succeed in their place later on. That doesn't mean failure simply means "the timing was wrong" - you are putting a lot of weight on society adjusting to your belief. Consider that venture capital often invests in hundreds of founders like this, betting that at least one of them wasn't wrong. That's not statistically in your favor.

It is OK (in fact it is valuable) to fail and conclude that your signals may have been wrong. There's a reason some venture capital funds prefer investing in people who have failed before.

	▲	codemog 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Personally, I don’t know how you can say the timing was never right and will never be right at any point in the future. That frankly seems impossible, unless it was something like a B2B SaaS that gouges out your eyeballs, but I guess we’ll agree to disagree.