Anyone using Syrinscape?

[MaxSupernova]

I bought this program two years ago, and I was a later adopter (after the Kickstarter). The program was and still is barely functional for my needs.

You keep posting your "STOP ASSUMING!" bits, and you keep getting upset when people get frustrated with your information sharing (or lack thereof), or with your development process, or with your community management.

Perhaps your continual need to keep posting that should be a hint that something might be broken. Having to repeatedly tell users to stop making assumptions in light of the lack of information should be a hint that we're feeling a lack of information.

So, it's been two years. The complete lack of communication on what is going to appear next, when it will appear, or what level of functionality it will have is a running joke here. The fact that everyone knows who is waiting for the calendars that were promised, and there are little holy wars over calendar versus export, and all of that? That's a sign that people have no idea what you are doing. New users come in waves and we have to answer a whole new round of "Where is this functionality?" "Where is that functionality?" every few months, and we have to answer them with "Hey, get in line, we're all waiting and have no idea what's going on." The cyclic sets of comments and jokes about what features people want next, and what priorities they are, but we've done that a half dozen times while we wait? That's a user base that has resigned themselves to wait in the dark and make jokes from their complete helplessness. You as a leader should think about that. Your users are designing a forum culture around your company's lack of provision of features or information about those features. It would be absurd if it wasn't so frustrating.

It's been two years since I bought this program. Two years. There's no ETA or published plan for when any of the major functionality that's been promised or requested will be available. I have no information on when it's going to get any better.

Don't get me wrong. I love this program. I want this program to be amazing. It could be so freaking fantastic. But it's been two years of "could be, might be, you're slowing things down by asking".

So when, after two years of waiting and dumping my data into a program that I can not get it out of again, waiting for features that I have no idea when or if they are coming, I see a completely contextless line in a release document about how an unrequested feature practically no one will use is now added, I think I have a reasonable right to be frustrated. I think I have the right to express frustration about what's going on without being condescended to by the very person that's in charge of the issue.

"Hey, that function only took a couple of hours! Don't worry! It's a test case for other cool integrations! We're still working hard on the important stuff!" would have been the end of it, because it would have at least acknowledged that you're aware of what your outward face looks like. Please don't get righteously indignant at my frustration with your product management. You as a business owner don't get to decide how or when people express their frustration, but you do get to decide the tone with which you respond.

"Trust us" only works for so long when the user community is completely in the dark. I have to have reason to trust you, and quite frankly you haven't shown me any reason to. The information we get from you is to shut up and stop bothering you so that you can code and then silence. It seems like everything ends with "you're delaying something important by questioning." The public face of your company is that your user base is an annoyance.

I won't project this outwards and pretend to speak for anyone else but myself. If you want, you can pretend that it's only me and that banning me or telling me to stop using the product, or write yet another frustrated-sounding post about how busy you are and how you don't have time for this and it's obviously my fault.

You can pretend it's only me that's frustrated, but I think you'll be wrong.

My apologies for daring to let my frustration show at an inconvenient time, in an unapproved manner.