You brought them in to a focus group or you sent out a survey.

Then, companies started to monitor sales figures and markets.

After that, they developed A/B testing, and moved on to behavior-tracking analytics.

In the end, the people projecting their wants and needs on to the data were no better than the Greek augurs who played around with bird guts, or the old women who chewed wacky weed and called themselves oracles.

That’s what the users tell me when I ask them.