Its' interesting that those that have posted here so far are of the view on what the software company should do for me. I read Steve's article and took away the opposite viewpoint: am I giving the software company a fair shake of what I expect.

I often see this with computer users in general, but find it most interesting with developers. A tool or package or website or mobile app doesn't do what you expect, and you think the face-less company must not have half a brain. All developers have been in product/project meetings, determining features, discussing how to implement them, throwing things in, throwing things out, prioritizing. Yet when we are users of software products, and it does not do what we expect, or we cannot extend a feature to do something similar but for our use, some of us think the product is broken. Some of us cannot empathize with the developers of that product, recognize they had design decisions and tradeoffs, and probably did the best that they could (even if it would not be what you would do in same or similar situation).

I try, when working with a tool or package or website or mobile app, to understand their point of what the product is supposed to do, and can it work for at least part of my need. Can I extend it, or work around it, to get my solution done. Sure, there will be some bugs, but I'm sure some of the reported bugs are just a failure of the user to understand how it works, and the failure of the user to understand their situation or scenario is slightly different.

I believe Steve's point was to have some empathy for the other side when you use a tool or package or website or mobile app. The other side of the server has real people, just like you (and probably griping about your product).