The "Almost Right" Problem in Product Management

Ever made a decision that felt right at the time but later turned out to be… just almost right? 🤔

That’s the tricky part of product management—spotting the difference between a great decision and one that’s close, but not quite there.

Take Twitter's (Now X) Fleet (source) as an example :

Stories worked on Instagram and Snapchat, so why not here? Logical, right? But it didn’t quite fit how people used the product! So, almost right -launched -fizzled out .... gone!

Think of a UX tweak, that makes sense on paper but confuses users just a little too much. A metric that looks great but doesn’t really drive outcomes. A feature that solves half the problem but introduces two new ones.

“Almost right” can be more dangerous than outright wrong—it sneaks in, sticks around, and creates long-term friction.

Why do you think Fleets didn’t work for Twitter/X? Was it the audience, the format, or something else?

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