I think this is the essence of the much-bandied "do things that don't scale" advice. Scaling inherently involves abstraction and generalisation, engaging with individual human beings can generate much clearer insights until it becomes impractical (scale being a forced issue).

100% Agree

So much this! I'm one of the people that appreciates seeing "behind" the product very much :)

If you feel that a real human person is behind all that, and not a faceless company, you're also much more likely to share feedback. (Nobody would share improvement ideas for Windows with Microsoft, since you can be sure that those go straigth to /dev/null (or, more appropriately, the recycle bin).)

I really agree with you. I think in any walk of life you can reap so much benefit from just being a human being and treating others the same.

I get so much response when I email people. Every email is hand typed and I just say whatever comes to mind at the time.

Its super helpful for getting feedback and getting to know my customers.