Technology should help us understand the world and then let us get back to living in it.

Companies use attention as inventory to be measured and optimized for. Somehow, they never want less attention. Except people’s time is a part of their actual life. We should treat it that way.

Attention is not inventory.

A product should make decisions easier. This sounds obvious, but most products today turn one simple action into an endless stream of notifications, recommendations, streaks, and a never-ending list of things. The product took control.

The tool should work for the person.

We used to finish things. A newspaper had an edition. The news program ended. A letter finished, with a real outcome.

More information is treated as if there is no cost. A constant onslaught of new information has pulverized our brains into submission. This is not okay. Deciding what is enough is the responsibility of every product.

The goal is not to know everything.

Our feeds are filled with people telling us who, or what, is right and wrong. The more you know about a topic, the more these people seem completely incoherent. Facts do not always arrive in a neat little package. We should allow facts to coexist without demonizing the person who stated them.

Facts can disagree and both still be right.

Products confuse time spent using them with value. They pull us in, keep us busy, and call it an improvement to our lives. The real outcome is what the product helps us do after we leave. Finish the work, connect with someone, make dinner, understand the world.

The point of life is outside the product.