Why Big Tech Companies Don’t Give a Damn About You
The Baidu Wake-Up Call
I stumbled across this brutal Twitter rant that perfectly captures the rage every tech user feels but rarely articulates:
“Why hasn’t a big company like Baidu, with a product like Baidu Cloud that has so many users, bothered to adapt it for high-resolution screens? It’s like they’re force-feeding users crap; every time I open it, it’s disgusting.”
Disgusting. That’s the word that cuts to the bone here. Not “suboptimal” or “needs improvement”—disgusting.
And you know what? They’re absolutely right.
The Brutal Economics of User Contempt
Here’s the uncomfortable truth that every product manager knows but will never admit publicly: domestic tech giants don’t need to care about user experience.
Their competitive advantage isn’t built on delighting customers—it’s built on creating dependency through market dominance and ecosystem lock-in. Once they’ve got you trapped in their walled garden, they can serve you garbage on a silver platter and you’ll keep eating it.
The Cost-Benefit Calculus of Contempt
Let’s do the math that keeps executives awake at night:
- Option A: Deploy several developers and designers for months to fix high-DPI support
- Option B: Launch a quick marketing campaign that drives immediate revenue
Guess which one wins every single time?
The harsh reality is that polishing the user interface generates zero measurable revenue compared to aggressive user acquisition tactics. In fact, it often shows up as negative ROI on quarterly reports—the kiss of death in corporate boardrooms.
But here’s the part that should make us all furious: this reflects our collective failure as consumers. Domestic users have been systematically trained to accept mediocrity. We complain, we rant on social media, but we keep using the damn products anyway.
Exhibit B: DJI’s Calculated Indifference
The DJI Pocket case study reveals just how surgically precise this contempt can be.
I remember that forum post about the absolute nightmare of transferring files from the DJI Pocket. Anyone who’s tried to move footage off that device knows the pain—it’s like the engineers actively tried to make it as frustrating as possible.
That post exploded with engagement. Hardcore vloggers and NAS enthusiasts—people who actually understand workflow optimization—flooded the comments with detailed, actionable suggestions. These weren’t casual users whining about minor inconveniences; these were power users offering free consulting on how to fix a genuinely broken experience.
Two Years of Silence
DJI’s response after two years? Complete radio silence.
Not a single employee acknowledgment. Not even a form letter saying “thanks for the feedback.” Just the corporate equivalent of a middle finger.
Why? Because DJI’s spreadsheet warriors ran the numbers and realized that optimizing file transfer workflows would help maybe 5% of their user base become marginally more productive. The other 95%—the Instagram weekend warriors who shoot 30-second clips—couldn’t care less about efficient batch transfers.
The Pocket’s core competitiveness has nothing to do with respecting power users’ time. It’s about being small, affordable, and producing decent footage for social media. Everything else is noise.
The Capital Market Reality Check
Here’s what the motivational business books won’t tell you:
- ✅ “Big company” ≠ User-friendly products
- ✅ “Millions of users” ≠ Caring about individual experience
- ✅ “Market dominance” ≠ Quality improvement incentives
That’s not how capital markets work, and it’s not how they’re designed to work.
Public companies exist to maximize shareholder value, period. User experience improvements only matter insofar as they drive measurable revenue growth or prevent churn. If you’re already locked into their ecosystem and complaining but not leaving, you’re essentially subsidizing their indifference.
The Uncomfortable Truth
We’re not customers—we’re revenue units in a spreadsheet. And until we start acting like customers who actually have alternatives and use them, nothing will change.
The rant about Baidu Cloud isn’t really about high-DPI support. It’s about a fundamental disrespect for users’ time, intelligence, and dignity. And the most infuriating part?
They’re getting away with it because we let them.