No Satisfaction Guaranteed

I use Apple products mostly for work. When it comes to iPhone vs Android, I need access to my file system, so I choose Android any day. But the last thing I'll say is that Apple products suck. Whether it's the UI, screen quality, laptops, or tablets, Apple has done an amazing job. Yet every time there's a new iteration, someone will write about how much Apple sucks right now. The same happens with new Android phones too. There's no way of satisfying all users. No matter what you do, someone will complain that your product is now worse than ever.

This isn't entirely the fault of users. There's a system in place that conditions us to have high expectations as we critique. We're taught that a company's ultimate goal is to create a perfect, successful product, which I believe Apple has succeeded in doing. But what happens after success? I'd argue that this moment of peak success is also the beginning of a crisis.

Imagine you have an idea. The best idea. You turn it into a product. A masterpiece. It's durable, high-quality, and cleverly solves a problem. You launch it, and everyone buys it. The world is happy. You've won.

So, what now?

Logically, you should be able to enjoy the spoils. You've made your money and delivered genuine value. Your work here is done. But the modern economy doesn't work that way. A company isn't a one-hit wonder; it's an entity that must survive, and survival is defined by one thing: infinite growth.

The Perpetual Motion Machine

Once you've sold your perfect product to everyone who wants it, you hit a wall. Your success becomes your ceiling. To survive, you must now convince your satisfied customers to buy again. This is where the machine starts to break us.

You can't just sell the same thing. People already have it! So you're forced to create something new. You leverage the trust from your first success and slap the same branding on a follow-up. But this new product must be different. It must be "better," or at least appear that way. It needs new features, a new design, a new reason for people to open their wallets.

If you fail, those who are watching, your competitors, learn from your mistake: "Never give your best on the first try."

Even if you have the knowledge and ability to create the "perfect," lifelong product, you're discouraged from doing so. Instead, you release a dumbed-down version. You hold back the best features for "Version 2.0" or the "Pro" model. You design for planned obsolescence, either in function or in fashion. You're not building a solution anymore; you're building a stepping stone to the next product.

Suddenly, you're making Marvel movies. In the end, the good guys defeat the enemy. They save the city. But right before the credits roll, a new problem is introduced. You can't leave satisfied. You must watch the next installment.

The best smartphones slow down, important software becomes unsupported, last year's model suddenly looks outdated. This isn't always an accident; it's often a feature of the system.

The goal is to keep us on a treadmill. A perpetual motion machine of consumption. Our satisfaction is a problem for business. A truly satisfied customer is a dead end. A customer who is almost satisfied but sees a brighter, shinier solution on the horizon is the engine of growth.

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We've built an economic system where success is no longer measured by problems solved, but by the ability to manufacture new desires. Companies aren't rewarded for creating lasting value. They're rewarded for creating lasting dependency. The better a company gets at solving our problems, the more desperately it must invent new ones.

This cycle doesn't just affect products; it shapes how we think about satisfaction itself. We've internalized the idea that contentment is stagnation, that last year's perfectly functional device is somehow insufficient. We've learned to mistake novelty for progress and updates for improvement.

Instead of always waiting for the next version that doesn't suck, we should start saying: "This is enough. This works. You don't need to buy again." In a system that forgot how to breath, maybe the next big innovation will be how we learn how to slow down.

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