REVOLT OF THE MASSES

Below is a copy of a letter that I mailed yesterday to Jeff Bezos, Chairman and CEO of Amazon.com, Inc.

March 13, 2010

Re: Askville.com

Dear Mr. Bezos:

Almost three years ago, I accepted an invitation via e-mail from your firm to participate in a new venture called Askville. I will always be glad that I acted upon the invitation.  Askville opened the door to many hours of fun and fellowship for me. Askville also gave me an opportunity to improve my Internet research skills, as well as an opportunity to learn many new things through researching my answers to the questions. Until recently, logging onto Askville was the highlight of my day.

Sadly, the new team running Askville has so drastically altered Askville that participating in Askville is no longer fun. Indeed, many of the users of Askville have either departed totally or have scaled back drastically their participation. At the moment, I belong to the later camp.

The changes made to Askville all share a number of common flaws.

One, they were not needed. Here in Texas we have an applicable saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Askville’s management appears to be ignorant of this basic concept.

Two, the changes were made with apparently no customer research or participation. We both know that customer input is a requisite for satisfied customers. Since those of us who post on Askville have literally decades worth of collective experience with Askville, keeping us out of the loop makes no sense.

Three, the changes were badly executed. Many of them failed to work as planned, leading to preposterous results. Management has begun to respond to some of the complaints, but their response over all has been grudging and slow.

If you would be so kind, please ask someone unconnected with Askville to log onto the site and read the questions and answers and the comments on the discussion boards under the topic “Askville.”  Anyone who looks at these things objectively will be able to discern that Askville’s management has created a serious set of avoidable problems.

As a customer of Amazon.com, Inc. and a shareholder, I firmly believe that you ought to be made aware of what is going at Askville. If anyone at your firm desires to contact me, my contact data is listed above.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Rory R. Olsen

Since I mailed the letter, several interesting things have happened.

First, a “strike” has been called. If you log on now, the place is as dead as a ghost town. All that is needed to complete the picture would be for them to change their log to tumbleweed blowing across a dusty street.

Second, someone (not me) has organized an e-mail campaign to Mr. Bezos. I imagine when my letter reaches him in Seattle on Wednesday or Thursday, he and his staff will have already noticed that the new management team at Askville has managed to create a problem for no good reason.

Why did all of this confusion and controversy occur? If you look at Scott Rasmussen’s book, “In Search of Self-Governance,” you will see that at this moment, the mood of a majority of Americans is anti-authoritarian. We don’t want our lives controlled by others. Bless their hearts, the new management team must be oblivious to this change in the national mood. Their changes to what is at best a casual hobby for those of us who post there have managed to create a revolt of the masses. This result became inevitable once the management team decided to behave in an arbitrary, capricious and dictatorial manner. Treating adults as if they are children is not a smart thing to do.

It is bad business to alienate one’s customers.  It is even worse business to do it to no good end. The current management team is young. Perhaps they will learn from their mistake to the benefit of their next set of employers.