Utility of Linux dev channel users?

[AnotherUsername]

I very much want Edge on Linux to be solid and available with (almost) all the features of the main platforms. Now that a stable version has been released, I am considering moving my main browser usage to that from the dev channel. Dev has bugs (including the current, very nasty password copy bug) that take real time and effort to work around. If the team doesn't get any meaningful value from me (a developer, including the web, and pushing the browser to the limits with lots of web sockets, massive indexeddbs, client-server architecture with service workers, etc.) using the dev version, then I'll definitely move to stable for the stability. If my usage *meaningfully* contributes, I'll stay on dev. By "meaningfully", I mean that a human actually gets around to reading my feedback, etc, which only happens if there aren't lots of us submitting them.

Am I ever going to get an honest answer to this, or just a "of course we value you" community-building answer?

[#2]

@AnotherUsername "Now that a stable version has been released, I am considering moving my main browser usage to that from the dev channel. ... If the team doesn't get any meaningful value from me (a developer, including the web, and pushing the browser to the limits with lots of web sockets, massive indexeddbs, client-server architecture with service workers, etc.) using the dev version, then I'll definitely move to stable for the stability. If my usage *meaningfully* contributes, I'll stay on dev."

I'm curious about why you think the choice is binary. 

Most of us who participate in the Insider programs use the stable version in our production environment and the beta/dev version in our testing/evaluation environment, providing frequent feedback to Microsoft. 

That seems to be the norm.

"Am I ever going to get an honest answer to this, or just a "of course we value you" community-building answer?"

Probably not.  I've been a Windows Insider for many years, and an Edge Insider for over two years.  I have not ever communicated directly with Microsoft in the way you seem to require, nor do I expect Microsoft to communicate directly with me on issues.

[#3]

Hey there! I fully recognize that I'm rocking the community manager signature and might be exactly who you don't want to hear from on this, but here we go anyway! Your feedback from the Dev channel does meaningfully contribute and the team does pay attention to it. Let me pull back the curtain a little bit though.

Generally speaking, the team doesn't respond to individual bug reports unless they need specific additional information to recreate a problem, but in most cases with Linux just having the distro, Edge version, and repro steps is more than enough for the team working on the Linux builds to reproduce the issues on their own machines and debug from there. For feedback items, it's much the same story -- the team rarely responds to individual feedback, but they do read it and it hugely informs what's next to work on and what changes to make. 

You also highlighted that you're a poweruser, it's great to have your submissions because (as you well know) you're going to catch things that someone who's not pushing their system just won't. And, sorry, I totally have to do the Community Manager thing, you can just stop reading if you're over it! We've had a couple of Linux bugs recently that were solved specifically because folks posted here about them. The value of that early feedback from our Dev users is obvious, to me and to the team as a whole. The team can and will investigate bugs based on a single piece of feedback, posted here or through in-browser feedback, so there's plenty of room to make a difference as a Dev user. 

Alex Rowell (she/her)
Community Manager - Microsoft Edge