You have seen it before. Company A does an update, releases a product, does a thing and it’s universally reviled. The feature doesn’t work, the product is not only bad but horrendous, the thing is just busted. Real people used it and they decided it sucks. And so, this happens… The Backlash.

People complain loudly. They sent letters, e-mails, let the support agents know. Large media publications publish articles saying that Company A did a fuckup. Ratings tumble, the company’s moral goes downhill, and until that thing, update, product is no longer there, people and media publications will continue to belittle Company A.

This is too common nowadays with software development being based on MVP (Minimum Viable Product), and will happen to someone at some point. But complaining usually doesn’t work, right?

It does (sorta)

Well, I’d like to let you know that it does, as long all sides of the conversation complain that Company A did a fuckup. Most likely it’s some sort of techbro-pilled invention that doesn’t work even if you don’t consider it good (I know I didn’t).

Case in point: Microsoft Windows Recall.

A wildly panned release, Windows Recall was supposed to do something very amusing, make sure that you could recover things you lost, as it actively recorded your screen (!!!) and saved it somewhere. It was only gonna work for Snapdragon X1 based chips only with the Windows on ARM version, since they had the fabled NPU for AI. It was gonna be opt-out (enabled by default, you had to turn it off).

Immediately people pointed out that it was a massive privacy failure, as people didn’t want Microsoft (and their AI) spying on them, and also it would recover data that you wanted to delete. If a hacker managed to get into it, they would immediately be able to recover files. Experts also complained that it could be a security nightmare, and Microsoft delayed the initial release almost at the last minute.

Eventually the company made it available for testing using the Windows Preview Program (where you can test versions before they go out for public), and experts confirmed their suspicions. It stored all the contents in a file without any encryption in plain text. The file didn’t need admin permission to be viewed. People with older Snapdragon chips on PC were able to make it run without using the X1 the NPU. People without any Snapdragon were able to run it too…

Microsoft immediately reversed course, recalling Recall (heh), and reworking it so all the issues were ‘fixed’, minus the fact that it records your screen, can restore your files and actively spies on you. They also made it opt-in (disabled by default, had to turn it on for it to work) and can be removed completely, meaning that people can avoid it for good. From the reveal to the actual release, it took about a year to launch.

That’s just one example and I think that it encapsulates what I mean: The pushback will happen if things are done in a bad way, to the point that everyone affected is gonna suffer.

Both Sides Need to Talk the Same Language

For everything, there are users and experts. Users are people you should look into not as closely but should be aware as a whole. The mass of users will determine how something goes. The market will or won’t be swayed by what you do, so it’s better to always keep a look at how the people there are feeling about something.

Experts, however, can create a lot of issues or solve them depending on how they act. Usually speaking, these are people that have some sort of real sort of degree with something so they understand what they are talking about and know what to look for when they look for issues. These are usually reliable people that listening to them will be usually good.

Articles made belittling companies will usually have experts explaining why something is bad, and then have the users to confirm it. This is what I mean that both sides need to talk the same language, both users and experts consider something to be terrible for it to be heard. If experts hate it but users like it, nothing will happen, and if users hate it and experts like it, it’s likely that nothing will happen either, since experts are approving it.

Revert It

So what happens when Company A wants to save face? Well, they can always revert it. And they should.

There are countless stories of companies that instead of going back, they went forward and paid the price. Sonos being one of them, with a disastrous update in May 2024 that caused a lot of problems… About 20 to 30 Million USD down the drain. The CEO didn’t apologized until July and left the company in Q1 2025, along with the CPO. They even study the possibility of reinstating the previous version of the app (the one that worked just fine) and decided against it for some reason.

So, yeah, do your part and have some resemblance of sense. If users and experts don’t like it? Go back or it’ll cost you.

Closing Words

The Backlash only happens when something is so bad, so impossible to use that everyone gets to complain, quite literally everyone. And obviously, if you fail to see that you did a fuckup, it’ll cost you, more than you think.

So before launching anything, check to see if it’s actually something that people want, and revert it if no one likes it. If it’s a good idea that needs more time in the oven, make sure to put it back there, no one likes a completely raw meal.