I think I get what you're saying. So kool-aiders are the ones who, true believers or not, need to sing praises of software foisted upon them as a captive enterprise audience by an inefficient top-level purchasing/procurement system. So, people are not idiots, means that most people, even some non-zealot kool-aiders see things don't work and could be better in such situations.

I totally agree. I think what happened with us is, as is the case in most of these things, we were talking about orthogonal or parallel things.

I'm not assuming your agreement with my belief that aesthetic, even "brutalist" or "slow and clunky", will connote quality to a certain subset of users, enterprise being one example. I think your might have took it to mean I was saying "haha, therefore I think enterprise users are idiots." Which is not what I meant, but I get how you could see that. I don't think an aesthetic preference, even one which may on the face of it seem maladaptive, means people are idiots. I don't think it's a maladaptive preference, it's a natural thing, and there's reasons for it that work. I suppose it's a form of stereotyping, that allows people to form quick judgments from limited information.

And I'm aware of the research that says that a "good UI" can hide other problems, and be easier to use. So on the face of it, that would seem to say software with "slick and snappy" UX will be more prevalent, or at least be completely wiping the floor with the "slow and clunky" competition. But it's not -- at least not at the high end of the market that I care about. So this is an idea I have about that.

Actually, my criticism, if it was with any group, was with the developers who want the new shiny above all else, and seem to fail to see the practical benefits of practices done by bigcos, even when the success of those products is right in front of them. I think such blindness is stupid. But the developers are not stupid.

My back story is I, even when I wasn't someone who valued new and shiny above all else, once thought, "all I need to do is consumer-productize" enterprise apps and everyone will love them. But that's not all that's required. So I don't underestimate the sales process, I'm just coming at it from the point of view that aesthetics are a component of that decision, albeit an implicit and probably by necessity unspoken one (otherwise: "This UI looks too fancy and the app is too fast. We can't trust these guys, but the old-reliable, clunky and 80s-looking app we've been buying for 20 years just works great for what it is." ~~ but, hey, maybe people really do say that!).

I think you can sell the unfamiliar (product, narrative) using the familiar vehicle (product, narrative, aesthetic). So if you want to do something new, the best way is to serve it to people in a package they already like and are familiar with. I believe that as a general principle. But in this more specific case we're talking about here, I just think I see the importance of aesthetics and many other people miss it.

I could be wrong...I was wrong about what's required to develop enterprise apps, but I guess I see it as something (one of my hypothesis) that should guide how I develop software. Because I figure if I do that, it will save me worrying about stuff that doesn't matter (the new shiny slick and snappy), and I can concentrate on what matters (building what they want), and maybe even hack their psychology a bit (make it look like the old style apps they are already familiar with). It's OK if you think differently about it. It's my idea after all, I was just hoping to convince you a bit about it, not to convince myself more through consensus...I don't need that, but because I like the idea that maybe you can benefit from something I figured out, and I can "invite you into the cool club" of people in the know about this secret thing, that nobody else really gets, and we can watch all the other people clamber around with their stupid ideas together and smugly go, "Heh, we know better." But yeah...It's an idea, I haven't tested it extensively (but a few of my current popular projects use slow and clunky, or identically copied from competitors UIs and they are very popular), but I'm comfortable with making my choices just based on my ideas and hypotheses. Maybe I just like the sense that I can see something in this space of developers, that many other people miss, because that lets me feel smarter than most everyone else in that way...maybe that's just compensating for a "lack of real success." But even if so, I need something to keep me going, right? Some sense of motivating self-belief. So those things, even if delusions, are useful. But I don't believe it's a delusion, and I do believe this to be true, and I'm comfortable with that.

I think that's how I think about things, so I hope that makes everything clear. But I appreciate you coming back and being nice about it, not being mean at least. That's a change from how it sometimes goes around here.