Improvements

Last night,
I watched an infomercial
for a new type of string trimmer.
This trimmer’s string doesn’t break.
The infomercial demonstrated
how the trimmer could cut through metal.

As a string trimmer user,
this scares the shit out of me.

I remember when the string trimmers first launched.
There were demonstrations
on how the trimmers wouldn’t hurt users
because the string broke off.

Having a trimmer with an unbreakable string
isn’t an improvement for me.
It is a step backward in product development.

I hope the product developer
is targeting the extreme string trimmer crowd.
Unfortunately,
I suspect the product pitch
echoed the infomercial,
positioning it as a replacement trimmer
with the general public as the target.

More isn’t always better.
An improvement
doesn’t always appeal
to all of the current users.