Features are a one-way street 2 Jul 2008

37signals has an interesting post on the problems associated with adding new features to a product or service. The post focusses on Netflix, who, a few months ago, added a new "Profiles" feature to its service. While this feature seemed promising initially, it soon became clear that it was way too confusing for the average user - so a couple of weeks ago, the company decided to remove it from its site. But it was too late. A small but significant - and highly vociferous - minority of users loved the feature so much that they threatened to cancel their subscriptions unless it was reinstated. In the face of this reaction, Netflix was forced to reverse its decision and reintroduce the feature. All of which leaves the company in the unenviable position of finding itself now stuck with a feature that works well for a few, but poorly for the vast majority of their users :-(