Free software scares normal people

Good article, but the reasoning is wrong. It isn't easy to make a simple interface in the same way that Pascal apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a shorter one.

Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I just need ..." is difficult. It takes a single strong-willed defender, or some sort of onerous management structure, to prevent the interface from quickly devolving back into the million options or schizming into other projects.

Simply put, it is a desirable state, but an unstable one.

> figuring out what that use case is difficult.

Which is why observability is so damn important.

Observability allows you to grock what your users in aggregate are doing, and adapt your product accordingly. You can take the lower-40% of features and squirrel them away off the main UI. You can take the lowest-10% of features and stick them in a special tools panel that needs to be explicitly hunted down and enabled. You can carve the UI up into three different levels - focused, simple, expert - that hide certain functionality and features, and explicitly expose others in certain ways, and allow the user to switch between them at will.

There is just so many ways that this particular cat can be skinned, you just need to collect the information on how the users are actually using the product. You just need to get permission in ways that encourages your users to participate.

Because without that data, you’re just stabbing in the dark and hoping you aren’t stabbing yourself in the foot. Or worse -- metaphorically ripping open your entire femoral artery by alienating the majority of your users.