All too often, systems get shipped with discriminatory byproducts and people throw their hands in the air and say, “oops, we didn’t intend that.”
Is it just me, or is this kind of OK?
Intentional discrimination isn't, of course. But if your initial release accidentally isn't accessible to people with blue-yellow colorblindness, is that a tragedy of social justice?
No product serves every person equally, and this is especially true early in the product's (or company's) lifetime. You're a little too busy tackling the core problem to have time for fixing every accessibility problem in rev A.
Which seems OK to me. Rev A's are by nature lacking & incomplete, and I would rather they get something out the door, make a profit, and decide to make a rev B- than miss the boat and/or go bankrupt trying to make the product equally accessible all from day 1.
There are plenty of products like that, that I have been unable to enjoy in their early stages, so it isn't like getting the short end of the stick has never happened to me. One of my favorite outdoor gear companies, for example, has started making technical clothing. They don't offer sizes that fit tall, slender me, so I'm pretty much hosed for now. But that's fine. They'll get to it eventually.
(Obviously in this particular case wrt. Oculus Rift & women, the point has now been raised and women are half the globe, so it would seem to be a high priority to address. I'm just addressing the quoted statement, which was much more general)
For some values of "kind of." I would even go so far as to say on a practical matter it may be worse than intentional discrimination.
Look, the problem is really one of intent and how well something matches intent. If you want a combat flight simulator that you are marketing primarily to young men, that's not necessarily a problem. If young women are less interested in your product, you need to serve those who are going to actually buy it.
But this works the other way too. If your target market is "everybody" then inducing motion sickness in 52% of your target demographic is not "ok" from a marketing perspective anymore than inducing seizures in the photosensitive would be. You don't want possible customers to get sick from your product. So on that level it isn't "kind of" ok.
This is an area where I actually think the less intentional discrimination, the more problematic it becomes.
Yes, it's clearly a big problem from a business/marketing/profits standpoint. No question there, and I am 100% confident it will be addressed for exactly that reason. I'm just talking about socially, is this something we would want to get Very Pissed Off About and break out our torches & pitchforks.
> is this something we would want to get Very Pissed Off About and break out our torches & pitchforks.
No disagreement. But again I am not sure that all defining target market as young men ages 18 to 25 is necessarily problematic either. A lot of things really depend heavily on details.
Probably not a Great And Proper Tragedy of Social Justice, no. But...
It's still pretty important, right? Like, if she's right about all her preliminary biological results, and if you were Palmer Lucky, wouldn't this kind of make you super super sad? Like "oh crap, my revolution is only going to be available to boys? that is NOT WHAT I HAD IN MIND!!!" Right?
Also, what if VR ends up being as big as web browsing? In that case, it might qualify as a tragedy of social justice for an utterly important information vector to cause nausea in say 50% of bio-females.
Then I guarantee you it would be fixed by rev B. Who wants to miss out on 51% of potential customers? I don't think you have much to worry about, market forces are definitely on the side of "getting this fixed", even if it doesn't happen tomorrow.
Is it just me, or is this kind of OK?
Intentional discrimination isn't, of course. But if your initial release accidentally isn't accessible to people with blue-yellow colorblindness, is that a tragedy of social justice?
No product serves every person equally, and this is especially true early in the product's (or company's) lifetime. You're a little too busy tackling the core problem to have time for fixing every accessibility problem in rev A.
Which seems OK to me. Rev A's are by nature lacking & incomplete, and I would rather they get something out the door, make a profit, and decide to make a rev B- than miss the boat and/or go bankrupt trying to make the product equally accessible all from day 1.
There are plenty of products like that, that I have been unable to enjoy in their early stages, so it isn't like getting the short end of the stick has never happened to me. One of my favorite outdoor gear companies, for example, has started making technical clothing. They don't offer sizes that fit tall, slender me, so I'm pretty much hosed for now. But that's fine. They'll get to it eventually.
(Obviously in this particular case wrt. Oculus Rift & women, the point has now been raised and women are half the globe, so it would seem to be a high priority to address. I'm just addressing the quoted statement, which was much more general)