Oh dear...
This is the part where condescension takes over for debate.
I do know I bring alot on myself. That my fault. I accept it and don't ask that anyone believe me...but I make my case as you attempt to (before u give up)
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But I took "time off" after college and got real business experience at WDW. It had its good sides and it's bads... And was possibly the weirdest period in wdw history...but ultimately I had to return from neverland.
I never said your points weren't valid, rather I was pointing out you have been essentially repeating them for 5 pages. You are fully entitled to your opinion and I'm glad you shared here. I disagree that we have to assume all articles are touched by the hand of Disney. Afterall, some people carry their own biases with them. Maybe he is a superfan and just wanted to see behind the curtain as to how it got developed. Maybe he felt he was being objective but his own love of the product informed his writing. Ultimately though, many of those disagreeing with you are pointing out that he spoke to a wide variety of folks. So it's not just his opinion or outlook being taken into account here. Another person could have written the same article and interpreted the quotes differently. They could have focused more on the delays and the budget and drawn conclusions just from those two alone that it was a failure.
I've seen you mention several times that the MB system is nothing new, it's just a fancy package for preexisting features. Can it not be argued that this could be due to all the pushback that was received? How much can you integrate when you don't have the companies full buy in? It was pitched to have ride interactivity, yet the imagineers dismissed this as a gimmick and ignored it. The initial hurdle was getting the infrastructure in place and tying the business together.
At my company I am not your average geo. I came in during the bubble where most are older than me or are new grads. I had a background in programming before I got my degree, so I came into my position automating daily tasks. I started building databases to store not only E&P data, but also to house op and land data. Why? Because it was all in it's own silo before. The short of it is, I received a ton of pushback. I was changing the status quo. It required a few key execs backing it to push it through and shove it down other departments throats. They were quite happy to have their data only on their machine and inaccessible by anyone else. I happened to pick up GIS skills when I was in college as well. So I started spatializing my databases. Fast forward to now and it is considered standard business practice to have unified spatial data. I didn't pioneer the concept, but I didn't build it out for several companies. And every. single. time. I had to fight tooth and nail against the office folks. People don't like change.
Maybe I sympathize with the Magic Band folks. They were given a task. They dreamed big and they released smaller. They were attacked by nearly every department if you believe that article. They had Iger's subtle threats every step of the way, "It better work....". At the very least they made the keycards "funner". And if your worried about the fact they spent a billion doing it, take comfort in knowing that at least now you have parkwide wifi access and #2, that billion would have gone towards tearing up attractions you probably don't want torn up. Disney rarely spends that kind of money without pissing someone off simply because it is nearly impossible to spend that kind of money and not cause changes.
As far as the fp+ system goes, I think ones experience is totally informed by their expectations. Not having expectations for it, I was fine with it. Had I been doing it for years and was locked into how it used to be, maybe it would have irked me. But I just don't see it as "breaking the park" as some paint it to be.
This could not be more incorrect. The argument is not that FP+ should never have been done, but that the build-out of attractions to support it should have been done first.
That's the imagineers fault. 100%. I really don't see how that can be disputed. They have sole say when it comes to designing the rides. They opted to call it a gimmick and leave it out of the rides. In "avatar land" Rhode's dismissively waved to an area off to the side and claimed that was where magic band's would be useful. They have every opportunity to build more "non gimmicky" support into the actual rides and they are actively choosing to not do it. and since they apparently answer to no one, the blame falls squarely on them. With technology these days it would be very valid to have your picture stored on that magic band. And as you go through the haunted mansion one of the ghosts has your face on it. Or maybe it just says your name. Or maybe it knows where you are from. Or some combination of the above that changes from doombuggy to doombuggy. This isn't pie in the sky thinking, it is very possible. But only the imaginners can enact those changes.
See now... I 100% agree...it's a work in progress and I'm very interested if they have a "level 2" or "level 3" in the pipeline to better use the technology....
The sad truth is they may not be willing to continue that fight. It appears that the imagineers can't be forced to do anything, let alone add magic band interactivity to rides. MK is a test bed for the product. And until it, as you say, does more than just integrate a keycard into a bracelet, then they won't be willing to spend the cash necessary to retrofit the infrastructure of their other parks to work with it. And if all the parks aren't using it, then it makes every R&D dollar spent less effective.