Product managers are hallucinating on their consumers. Leave them alone.

Shift, the boy

It has been years since the news that people surprisingly decided not to upgrade their PCs to Windows 11.

Or that Edge browser that now shares some code with Google Chrome.

Or Copilot+ PCs whose are supposed to be as premium to the MacBooks, but barely thinking about people’s diverse range of purchasing power.

The nemeses like the Free Software Foundation (FSF) however, continues to ask people to "keep the pressure" to that Big Tech company and its longtime business ambitions from DRM, Secure Boot, Cloud (Azure), SaaS (like Office 365), enterprise-ification of Open Source (acquisition of GitHub), and very recently, the AI fever (Copilot).[1][2][3]

And now people seem to collectively call the company recently as Microslop.[3]

Microslop is not the only company I’m putting on the blame here. Countless Chinese “smart home” and consumer electronics companies do a whole another set of slop with requiring people to register for different accounts for different smart home brands (except those involved with Tuya), Times New Roman in mobile apps[note:1], evading App Store / Google Play’s in-app purchase policies, poorly-translated English, and the over-dramatization of product images for a relatively ancient technology.

This power bank (www.amazon.com.au) claims to have “Efficient Charging” but only to 10W (5V 2A). Did you know that 15W fast charging was the Android norm in 2015?
Even worse, our internal tests proved that iPhones that are not connected to better USB Power Delivery (PD) 2.0 standards would only consume 7W (5V 1.4A) even on a desktop charger rated up to 15W (5V 3A)!

Not just in the United States or China, even Indonesian mainstream media companies have the apathy of maximizing their mobile website’s real estate for ads—not for usability or accessibility. Even Kompas.com, an ad-supported news website, had to remove a specific ad provider because their ads continuously showed misleading news headlines that people mistakenly think they’re written by the editorial team.

Left: Daily Dot (www.dailydot.com), Right: Kompas.com (www.kompas.com); previewed with an emulated iPhone SE size in DevTools. Unlike the Daily Dot, you still can’t tell the full article title on Kompas.com without looking after ads or the URL address bar. Oh, and they’re hungry for notifications, too.

Edit: Heck, even ads on MSN.com are even less than Kompas.com!

Oh, and we haven’t even try to uncover the Apple Slop: people and businesses whose are not Apple but do think they are. They are living in a typical universe where they believe everyone revolves around their products. Some are even proud to market their product in a crafty way as what Apple did in the past or present. And even some do treat WWDC as their obligatory annual pilgrimage[note:2] and willing to sell the souls of their products to be sherlocked by Apple.[note:3]

Many of them, like Analogue, still succeed.

But many of them, like Friend and Nothing (the phone company), are falling apart, too.[4]

[note:1] Countless Chinese tech products are developed with HTML5 technologies with their preferred fonts typically limited to Chinese audience and limited operating systems—like Microsoft JhengHei (en.wikipedia.org) instead of Arial—also often with no sans-serif fallback keyword. Except for Android, any website that does not have the specific fonts available will render the text in Times New Roman or equivalent. You will see Times New Roman in many Chinese smart home apps for these very reasons.

[note:2] Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) is an annual conference for developers. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the event is mainly hosted online with select guests invited to watch the event live at Apple Park, Cupertino, CA.

[note:3] Sherlocking refers to Apple’s decision to either integrate or create an official product to replicate the functionalities already offered with third-party software whose are specifically designed for Apple platforms. The name itself came from Sherlock (now Spotlight Search), who was introduced against the third-party search tool Watson for classic Mac OS.

At this point, what am I talking about? It’s simple, that the people behind those products are hallucinating as worse than ever. Or in their terms, “as better than ever.”

When I decided to try loving the Microsoft ecosystem again from those Free Software activists in 2021, I started to see why people hate Microsoft products for reasons other than libertarian ideologies as in Free Software. In late 2025, ThePrimeagen has just confirmed and summarized my suspicions around this, saying that:

“Microsoft enjoys getting the value from their customers, whereas Valve enjoys delivering value to the customers.”[2]

And speaking of context, he’s talking about the consumer (especially in PC gaming) market, not enterprise. For enterprise, Microsoft still holds the bargaining power of being the default choice for their systems, you know, like Oracle.

So, in the consumer market, you could say many of the tech companies, big and small, are trying to win the market competition with the same playbook, same rules, with the expense of the users and potential users.

Table of Contents

They want to fit you into their fantasy of value-delivering charts.

Have you ever wondered how are you, the consumer, being commonly represented in mobile apps and digital services today? Though today, you are often identified as a user account or your e-mail address, your demographic characteristics, needs, and behaviors are most likely to be represented in these kinds of charts.

It’s crucial to know that these charts are NOT the problem. Hallucination is a behavioral problem, therefore, the fault should be in the designers’ or managers’ beliefs and behaviors, too.

Content Warning: Content from Generative AI models are presented beyond this point.

Acknowledgement of the Use of Generative AI Technologies

StyleGANv2 via ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com has been used to generate the image for the example User Persona.

Step 1: Create User Personas that represent expected “target market” consumers.

Photo
NameRob Banks (he/him)
Age19
OccupationStudent, at The University of Melbourne[note:4]
MotivationWants to engage deeper with professors to ace his upcoming thesis project
GoalsTo rob banks consistently allocate time to engage with professors off-class; better if plans are coordinated with his regular course schedule.
FrustrationsDoes not know when professors are free, ready for hang out.
Does not know where to find the professor; faculty office are mostly staff-only.
Preferred ChannelsUniversity-related work: University emails
Personal life: iMessage

To protect the privacy of the actual consumers who enjoy the products, a User Persona is a fictional factsheet that describes the identity of the consumer, their roles and responsibilities, their needs and wants. It is designed akin to a Resumé, except that User Personas put more emphasis to Motivations, Goals/Objectives, and Frustrations, instead of education and job history.

[note:4] Therefore, it is common and even a good practice for product managers to build fabricated details like, being a student in the university, although it is not factually true.

User Personas can be well-designed through demographic research and interviews. I do encourage people to thoughtfully design User Personas, and again, this is most likely not the source for the hallucination.

User Personas, when integrated with other product design managements like Scenario, User Story (“As a user...”), Service Blueprint (pictured below), and Value Proposition Canvas (VPC) to give a clearer picture of consumer journey of using the product.

From "Service Design: An Introduction to a Holistic Assessment Methodology of Library Services" - Reed College {Joe Marquez, Annie Downey}. https://doi.org/10.3998/weave.12535642.0001.201 (2015). CC-BY 3.0.

Step 2: Always create the best case scenario for each Persona.

There are multiple tools like the Value Proposition Canvas (VPC) that help designers and PMs to map “your” needs to their product offerings.

The essence of such a VPC is to map how the product works (as a gift on the left) to support the consumer needs (on right):

  • Products and Services that exactly aligns with Customer Jobs
  • Pain Relievers that remedies the customers’ Pains
  • Gain Creators that could leverage the Gains for consumers

What could go wrong with the charts?

Well, many product managers assume the “perfect world” scenario where users whose are closely aligned to the Persona or Customer Segment would benefit more of the product. But, to what degree? To me, it is fatal that diagrams such as these do not explicitly highlight the frequency and limitations of consumption. 

Let’s say, if I’m TikTok who is designing a VPC for my app, I could put “addictive viral content” as a Gain Creator that maps directly to “dopamine-inducing content” as one of the consumers’ Gains. With this strategic placement in mind, that means the more frequent a consumer consumes our content, it will be a mutual gain to us, the company, and our users!

In many cases, these diagrams do not strongly justify the personas’ economical constraints[note:5] as well as possible adverse effects that could be part of the product’s ethical considerations. This problem is up to a Product Designer or Product Manager (PM)’s perspective to thoughtfully define proper constraints that could satisfy both the business and the (potential) consumers.

I suspect that the rise of companies adopting Agile over traditional product planning and development methods have influenced designers that identifying risks often becomes an afterthought of progress. And when the details are even further glossed up through charts and Executive Summaries, it is easy to cast a spell on the leadership thinking a poor-thought idea was great for the future.

“The diagrams became the fantasy that product teams lives on.”

[note:5] Remember that economics does not just talk about money and purchasing power. It’s also about time and levels of effort needed to accomplish a given task, or satisfying a user’s needs and wants.

They are short-sighted to satisfy higher management’s business needs.

Back when I was asked to help to produce a pitch deck video to apply a company into a VC, I asked the CEO who wrote the script whether the “AI-powered” catchphrase could be somewhat altered from the narrative. The response?

“No. You really have to mention AI.”

Oh, the classic problem of trying to appease the ones above us. Because clearly, the other startups applying to the VC as of the time are keeping up with the AI race as well.

Now, I would like to dissect this problem for two groups: large, established companies (like Microslop) and digital startups. But I won’t elaborate much further about big companies, because you can already see some clear relationship of product design with intra- and inter-organization bureaucracy.

We see some “unnecessary tech features” are likely to be designed for compliance, like WhatsApp limiting forwarding messages only up to 3 contacts because of... the Indonesian Government?[6][7] Or pay-by-dignity becomes mandated by a major shareholder. Or some “unnecessary exclusive integrations” like you cannot manage online-purchased ChatGPT subscriptions on an iPhone because doing so would violate the terms of contract between OpenAI, Inc. with Apple, Inc. on the Apple Developer Program.

Another common tool for startup founders is the Business Model Canvas that polishes all the risks aside from the business model and the value proposition. Maybe, the risks were intentionally removed to encourage creative thinking instead of DEI-style overthinking. And well, it is a risk for the Canvas to be overlooked by potential stakeholders (and shareholders) if those side-effects are not considered in favor of execution.

They hallucinate that you consent to become part of their fantasy.

Instead of focusing on what the consumer actually needs by delivering actual value to consumers, product teams today tend to exploit consumers by fitting actual consumers into their fantasy needs, fantasy wants, fantasy pains, and fantasy gains!

Perhaps, just like your Friend[4] that your other friends could think that’s not, and perhaps another form of surveillance psy-op.

A clear consequence (more like, a business objective) to these hallucination is simple:

“The fantasy slop becomes the norm.”

And it is a threat if dystopia, like those Hollywood movies around robots and AI, are included within the corporate fantasy. Even utopia could possess another set of concerns that might be sanitized within in favor of the looks.

Let’s discuss the Sign Up-Log In (SULI) slop where most of tech products today forcibly requires consumer to log in in a certain way. In Indonesia, apps like Indomaret (convenience store chain) and even the Government’s OSS[note:6] now mandate you to have a WhatsApp-registered phone number to receive two-factor authentication codes. And no more SMS.

My question for you, what if you are suddenly banned by WhatsApp, not because of spam or fraudulent behavior, but because of tricksters mass-reporting your WhatsApp number profile? And how would you prove the alleged misdemeanor to both Indomaret and the Indonesian Government in your case to regain access to your accounts?

[note:6] Online Single Submission (OSS) (https://oss.go.id) is the Indonesian Government portal for business administration, including to manage business licenses with national and regional administrations.

Even when you can prove them to pay their highest Premium, you are still legally powerless (against Enterprise customers).

As someone else have confirmed this case for Google in a YouTube video, Big Tech companies still seem to water down their privacy protection options for consumers even to those who are willing to pay for the highest pricing tier as an individual consumer or family (www.youtube.com). And all boils down to one simple reason: “You’re not Enterprise.”[8]

We also see many people trying to convince Windows as an “enterprise customer” just to be able to access advanced privacy features including:

  • Turn off automated updates
  • Not logging in to any Microsoft Account
  • Being able to not pay for Windows license by masquerading an “enterprise” Key Management Server (KMS)
  • Receive extended support for Windows 10 after 14 October 2025
  • Be able to encrypt their PC with BitLocker[note:9]

[note:9] Remember that BitLocker is only offered to Windows Pro/Education/Enterprise/Ultimate editions, so not Windows 10 Home or Windows 11 Home.

And after all, some of them are grifters, too.

Remember the Builder.ai scandal of 2025? When enterprise customers thought Natasha was an AI, but actually, stands for “Actually Indians”?[9]

The output of this systematic failure is more solutions looking for a problem, like NFTs, and more solutions prone to problems, like Web3. In Web3, there are no such things like “forgot private key” as in “forgot password” in Web 2.0, and “report fraudulent accounts” for Ethereum wallets as in mobile banking apps. When NFTs are linked by Internet (non-IPFS) URLs, that means any rare monkey pictures can vanish altogether the instant the image server went down.

The overall essence of digital scarcity (that is often arbitrary rather than technical), and the need to constantly stay online to prove your worth just incentivizes more online grifts, heists, and frauds, whereas other physical assets, like gold, can be stored safely offline, without the need to be connected to your nearby Wi-Fi network. So, why build the worse in the first place?

Well, grifters clearly do exist in the business world, so are the key stakeholders and product managers figuring out to exploit more of the grift. Sometimes, a bad product is intended by executives to bring the best of the grift. Sometimes, removing Trust and Safety measures and keeping bad ads alive are imminent to keep the economy spinning, and to keep offset the operational costs, like the case of “Grifter Incorporated” (youtube.com)[10]

What can we take away from here?

It seems that tech companies have shifted from a conventional “value delivery machine” business model into “fantasy creation and reality transformation delivery machine”. What they thought creating their products is as simple as clicking File > Export... their digital fantasy into the real life.

No wonder that they are hyped up on Generative AI projects and try to fake it like it’s the perfect fantasy transformation machine for their lives.

We cannot set aside the nature of business competition as well from the factors of hallucination. Long story short, hallucination in product development is a combined product of competing ambitions, rushed management, bureaucracy, desensitized sense of ethics and empathy, and the constant fantasy of always thinking in a perfect world that revolves around the technological products and ecosystems. With all the corporate grifts and greed, too.

What should you do as a consumer?

As consumers, as long as local laws apply, it is your right as a consumer to execute your Consumer Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Rights. The problem here is that countless hallucinating companies are also trying to arbitrarily change the meanings of those rights.

For example, “digital security” is now being redefined from “digital security for you and you only” into “digital security between you and us (and whatever Partners we mention on the cookie popups)”.

Our approach here would not be as radical like, “KILL ALL PRODUCT MANAGERS”, but please carefully learn and exercise your rights, while at the same time, try to actively leave hallucinating businesses behind. It will be several steps further to understand your local laws and powers to inspect business-tech systems, take down any corruptions and bribes (like Indonesia’s Chromebook case), take appropriate class-action lawsuits, and influence your parliament for better regulations.

Remember that “active” word. You have to be active. Because if not, developers and businesses will continue exercise their fantasy-to-reality conversion services in favor towards their digital products and ecosystems. That means more time for setting their digital ecosystem the default for people’s digital lives, like Indonesia and WhatsApp, and that could bring the worse of their hallucinations to everyone, too.

References