Bored of eating your own dogfood? Try smelling your own farts
Modern tech companies are increasingly accused of abandoning “dogfooding” — actually using their own products and support channels — as they grow, leading to unusable interfaces, abusive phone trees, and unaccountable engineering teams. Commenters contrast small firms, where builders feel customer pain directly, with large organizations in which layers of management, metrics, and theater obscure reality from leadership. The conversation also revisits the meaning of “eat your own dogfood” versus softer metaphors like “drink your own champagne,” arguing that the discomfort of truly experiencing your own service, especially its customer support, is essential to building better products.
Dogfooding vs “Smelling Your Own Farts”
- Dogfooding is framed as a once-valuable “UX gyroscope” that aligned incentives between users and builders, but is seen as fading as large firms face less competition.
- Several comments stress that real dogfooding means using the product in its worst, in-development state and on “difficult” journeys (support, billing), not just in its happy path.
- “Smell your own farts” is interpreted as extending dogfooding to all the unpleasant parts of the experience, especially customer service.
- Some argue this is essential systems thinking: leaders must directly observe real customer interactions to know how to intervene.
Customer Support, IVRs, and Dark Patterns
- Many share horror stories of IVR mazes, misleading prompts, circular call routing, and upselling during outages.
- There’s consensus that bad self-service UX drives call volume and that sites often withhold simple, crucial information.
- Call-center staff are generally viewed sympathetically; frustration is directed at corporate policies and metrics.
- Tools that reduce waiting (e.g., automated hold features) are praised, but overall phone trees are called “dark pattern minefields.”
Large Organizations, Bureaucracy, and Disconnected Leadership
- Multiple anecdotes describe leaders and product managers who have never used their own products or spoken to front-line users.
- Meetings can devolve into slide-deck theatre, with anxiety when someone tries to show the real product.
- Layers of management, metrics worship, and turf battles (e.g., between teams or departments) are seen as blocking fixes to obvious problems.
- Some argue executives should periodically bypass filters, talk to workers and customers, and try the product themselves; others note incentives and sheer scale often prevent this.
Small vs Large Companies and Accountability
- Commenters see small, motivated teams as more likely to “care” because they can directly see customer impact.
- In larger orgs, individuals own tiny slices, making it hard to feel responsible for end-to-end experience.
- Even in smaller firms, engineering teams may prioritize roadmaps over critical quality issues, offloading pain to support and customers.
Language, Metaphors, and the Article’s Framing
- Debate over “dogfood” vs “champagne”: some prefer the gritty connotation (empathy via discomfort), others the aspirational framing.
- “Smelling your own farts” is criticized because it already means self-congratulation/delusion, conflicting with the intended message.
- A few dislike the crassness of the title; others think memorability outweighs taste concerns.
- Some point out the author’s own site UX as ironic given the call for better customer experiences.