Most makers make things for a human audience. And to engage an audience you have to understand what they need. - Paul Graham

It's a rough combination when people are simultaneously overreaching and uninformed. They want the best of everything, but they don't know what the best is, so their demands are simultaneously strident and random, like a set of vectors with large magnitudes and random directions.

So if you can make something that appeals to people today and would also have appealed to people in 1500, there is a good chance it will appeal to people in 2500.

If you want something from someone, make it clear what. It's not imposing to ask explicitly for something; it's imposing to be vague and make the recipient work to figure out what you want.