Teaching customers a lesson

Blog, Business model, Consumer rights, Design, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designers, DRM, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, Marketing, Retail, Shopping, Site Announcements, User experience

Seth Godin talks about companies that try to teach their customers a lesson:

“Either you’re going to make someone happy or you’re not…
Here’s the short version: If you try to teach a customer a lesson, you’ve just done two things:
a. failed at teaching a lesson
and
b. lost a customer”

How does this relate to the “stick” approach to changing users’ behaviour?
How does it relate to DRM, often presented as “keeping honest customers honest”?
If you’re designing (planning) a user’s experience (retail, product design, software, services), do you look on the user as the enemy, or the focus of your efforts?
(Trackback URI for Seth’s post)

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