benefits of friction

we’ve created a world where turning yourself into a brand isn’t a lifestyle choice but a survival strategy, particularly as AI puts a blowtorch to the remaining areas of knowledge work that once promised middle-class security.

It’s easy to feel like a minimalist when you can order food, summon a car, or rent a room using a single brick of steel and silicon. But in reality it’s the opposite. We’re taking advantage of a maximalist assemblage . Just because something looks simple doesn’t mean it is; the aesthetics of simplicity cloak artifice or even unsustainable excess.”

As platforms optimise for dwell times over interactions, they condition users to be more passive - they’re less likely to take an action, let alone buy something.

This is the logical endpoint of a frictionless society: when every external stimulation is instantly available, people are left with nowhere to turn but inward, and what do we find? Emptiness. The unending stream of content hasn't filled the void; it's simply distracted us from developing the internal resources to cope with it.

underpinning the zero-friction society is an insidious belief: that every instant that we spend with other people without transacting is a transaction cost getting in the way of efficient market exchange.

It’s easy to forget that friction is often what makes experiences desirable.

When there's no friction, there's no imagination. You're left as a pure consumer - a medieval king feasting in front of a court jester. You grow overstuffed and lazy upon your throne.

Through friction we develop our own unique taste, perspective on the world and conviction in that perspective.

The society of the 2010s said the goal was to make everything for everyone. Algorithms promised us we could kill all the tastemakers and just discover what we like for ourselves.

What we’re rediscovering now, as Chayka also demonstrated in filterworld, was that that principle just made everything look and feel exactly the same. Taste trended towards