Humility Is Better Late Than Never
I wanted to offer a quick follow-up to my post congratulating Marco Arment on the rewrite of Overcast, his podcast app. It’s hard to imagine you being in this corner of the blog-and-podcast-osphere and not hearing about Overcast’s 10th anniversary relaunch and how the removal and changing of specific features rubbed a lot of users the wrong way. It certainly tarnished (but I’d argue didn’t obviate) Overcast’s sterling reputation.
Being Overcast’s sole developer, Marco faced a lot of criticism for the way things went down. I was disappointed to hear that he received a bunch of personal attacks online. Stating what you don’t like about the update and choosing a different app is one thing, but we can do better than tearing people down.
All that said, one bit of criticism that stuck with me was when someone pointed out that Marco is often quick to point out the flaws in Apple’s software and to call for radical change in its direction, but then was not fond of being on the receiving end of similar criticism when it came to his own app. Having listened to Marco’s complaints about those complaints on ATP, I thought that was a fair bit of feedback.
Fast-forward to just a few days ago when I was listening to the latest episode of Marco’s other podcast, Under The Radar. It sounded like Marco had done some soul-searching, and realized that he is in a similar position where his many, many users have taken on a kind of co-ownership of the app alongside him. And that co-ownership meant it wasn’t super fair of him to make drastic changes to their workflows without notice or ready-made solutions:
(This is just a short clip, but if you’re an Overcast user, I recommend listening to the whole episode. It’s only 30 minutes long, and in it, Marco and David Smith have a really thoughtful conversation about dealing with the negative feedback and resolving the mistakes.)
It’s a realization that I wish Marco had made prior to the heartache, consternation, and damage to his business and reputation, but I’m glad that he got there in the end. Marco showed humility here, which takes courage and character. I think his app and his relationship with his users will be better off for it.
With the restoration and rethinking of several key features (streaming, easy sleep timer access, sorting options, downloads management…), it sounds like Overcast is back to being in most users’ good graces (mine included). If you stepped away from it during this bumpy landing, maybe give it another shot. Marco is listening and responding to feedback.