More Features Don’t Mean Better Products — Clarity Does

We’ve confused progress with addition. In modern products, success is often measured by how many features are shipped, not by how many real problems are solved. Every extra feature increases cognitive load. It makes products harder to learn, harder to maintain, and easier to break. Yet teams keep adding more — driven by fear of competition or assumptions about what users might want. Great products succeed by being obvious, not overloaded. Users don’t want complexity; they want confidence. They want to know where to click, what happens next, and how to recover if something goes wrong. Clarity is a design decision. It requires saying “no” more often than “yes.” It means removing friction, cutting unnecessary options, and respecting the user’s time. In the long run, products that value clarity outperform products that chase features. Simplicity isn’t a lack of ambition — it’s a sign of maturity.