The Tech We Need Is Slower

Every product roadmap I've sat in on for the last ten years has shared one unspoken assumption: that faster is the goal, and slower is the failure state to be engineered away.

But the tools people actually love living with — a well-made kitchen knife, a mechanical watch, a good bicycle — are rarely the fastest option available. They're the ones that ask something of you in return for what they give back.

Restraint, it turns out, might be the most under-explored feature in technology. Not less capability — less compulsion.