Self Experimentation, Trying New Software, and the Costs of Switching Defaults

I may not realize I’m uncomfortable running in the old shoes, but the minute I put the new ones on, I realize just how far the old ones had deteriorated and just how much better life is in the new ones. Same model shoe - just a fresh pair. And I run faster, stronger, and happier.

-via fredwilson.vc

I recently read a similar anecdote about experimenting with radical changes in diet, eg removing grains and legumes for 2 weeks. I have been trying this and realized it just makes me more alert, but I would never have thought anything was wrong (or non-optimal) if I had not conducted an experiment.

I've been trying these experiments a lot recently, I think because I saw a lot of people experimenting with bing.com as their default search engine. As a result, I've switched from Firefox to Safari, from Quicksilver to Google QSB, from iTunes to Spotify, and (before bing) from iPhone to Blackberry.

So far, I'm enjoying every one of the switches and have no intension of switching back to any of my previous defaults.

Something I won't be switching from anytime soon: Gmail. I've invest too much time and have too much stored value in the product and integration with calendar, bookmarks, maps, voice, and all the other services I use there. All of the experimenting I've been doing has made me realize exactly why data portability and open authentication solutions are so important for me as a consumer / user of products. Without these, the pain of switching is too high and I won't experiment as much. Hence, I won't be as likely to find 4 great alternatives to previous defaults in such a short time span.

I intended to write a blog post about all of this switching and experimentation stuff, but this comment has captured most of it. Thanks for inspiring the braindump. Let's see if I can figure out how to get disqus to post this to my wordpress now...

Originally posted as a comment by kortina on A VC using Disqus.