This may be too much of a leap, but I think there is something here. Gates’ avatar on Twitter (@billgates) is absolutely horrid.

You can see the photo here.

It’s a decent photo of Gates at a press event in a suit —but it’s been resized and then resized again. And not in a softened Photoshop way —like a chunky pixel Lucas Arts point-n-click adventure game way.

But who cares? It’s just an avatar. It’s just a dumb little image that is rarely seen large and looks fine small when viewed on a phone, etc.

And you’re right. It’s fine because it’s good enough.

But that’s the problem with Microsoft. Yeah, yeah; Gates is no longer the CEO of Microsoft, but it’s systemic of the culture that he built. Microsoft historically has been a company that accepted and promoted “good enough”.

It’s easy to say yes —hard to say no.

Is this OK? Yeah, sure. Why not?

And that’s why we see “feature creep” in Microsoft products. Programs packed with more and more features shoehorned in with little forethought that few people will use —but were added because somebody lobbied for it and it was easy to say yes.

Unbridled feature creep waters down the experience and focus of the product making it overwhelming to consumers, harder to maintain for programers, and harder to support.

Why? Why settle for good enough?

Get a better avatar.