the 37 signals dilemma

There's been on ongoing open letter exchange between 37Signals and GetSatisfaction. GetSatisfaction allows anyone to create unofficial customer support communities (like UserVoice) that all both remind me of a much better implemented features.reddit (now defunct). 37Signals doesn't want to have one and feels it "misled our customers into thinking the Get Satisfaction site was an official place to get 37signals customer service and support."

At this point, Jason Fried is requesting that the GetSatisfaction team makes it much more obvious that this is not an official 37Signals site, he outlines a number of changes he'd like them to make.

But here's the dilemma: 37signals has long touted the strategy of saying no to feedback.

That's why you start with no. Every new feature request that comes to us — or from us — meets a no. We listen but don't act. The initial response is "not now." If a request for a feature keeps coming back, that's when we know it's time to take a deeper look. Then, and only then, do we start considering the feature for real.

Granted, Jason isn't in this case a user of GetSatisfaction, but hopefully he'll find this as amusing as I do. I just hope he doesn't expect GS to do anything anytime soon. Heh.