Most software doesn't become complicated all at once.
It happens one feature at a time.
A button here. A setting there. A "small improvement" that seemed helpful during a meeting. Six months later the product has 47 toggles, three dashboards, and a help center that reads like an appliance manual from 1987.
To give this some clarity… software rarely gets worse because engineers forget how to build things. It usually gets worse because nobody is protecting simplicity.
Every feature has a cost. Not just development cost. Cognitive cost.
Users have to notice it. Understand it. Remember it exists. Decide when to use it. And if the feature interacts with three other settings… congratulations, you just invented a tiny puzzle someone has to solve every day.
From my perspective, good software behaves like a well-organized kitchen. Everything you need is within reach. The tools are obvious. You don't have to open five drawers just to make toast.
Bad software feels like cooking in someone else's garage.
You know the spatula is technically somewhere in there… but you're going to move a lot of random stuff before you find it.
The practical lesson for companies building or buying software is simple:
Features feel productive.
Clarity is actually productive.
The best products don't try to do everything.
They quietly remove the things you didn't need in the first place.
And oddly enough, that restraint is usually the hardest feature of all.
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