When a product tries to do too much, it often sacrifices quality and reliability in the process.
In fact, as soon as you hear of a product doing more than one thing, you’re inclined to think it’s merely passable at one and pretty terrible at the other.
If I offered you a great sofa bed, you’d mentally prepare yourself for 75% of the quality of a great sofa, and 25% of the quality of a great bed.
The spork works the same way. It’s a passable spoon and pretty useless as a fork.
Both are convenient. Neither is excellent.
This is where companies like Google and Apple originally excelled.
They built reputations by being great in a narrow domain.
Yahoo was 16 different things. Google had a search bar.
Samsung has phones that flip, fold, and expand to twice the size. Their latest phone has five different cameras on the back.
Google’s Pixel 7 has two.
Apple releases features 10 years after Android does, but it usually tunes them to perfection.
In fact, the last three generations of Apple's iPhone (12, 13, and 14) are almost carbon copies of the iPhone 4.
You don’t need to be everything to everyone.
"Be the best for a certain group of people" - Rob Fitzpatrick
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