redistribution of friction

In the physical world, effort is everywhere. Air traffic controllers are running on trauma leave. The radar fails. The copper wire breaks. And the solution is not to invest, it’s to slow everything down

Amazon's one-click ordering creates a seamless customer experience by offloading friction onto warehouse workers and delivery drivers.

Because while the digital world has removed all friction, the physical world is where the friction still lives. Not the good kind, the effort of doing something hard, the kinetic potential of possibility, but the bad kind: the exhaustion of trying to hold together systems that no one’s willing to invest in anymore.

The system always balances its books eventually. The more we optimize individual experiences for frictionlessness, the more collectively dysfunctional our systems become. All three worlds are interlocked in this economy of friction

This is the economic story: friction has become a class experience . Wealth has always helped smooth over bumps - but when the physical world is such a mess and the digital world is so easy, it’s simple to curate the digital into the physical if you have money.

When systems that were designed for resilience are optimized instead for efficiency, they break.

we have a world where friction gets automated out of experiences, aestheticized in curated lifestyles, and dumped onto underfunded infrastructure and overworked labor. The effort doesn't disappear; it just moves.

Loneliness isn’t just personal. It’s institutional. It’s fiscal. It’s a bit engineered. It’s purposeful.