You built it with love… but nobody wants it: the developer’s dilemma
There’s a common phenomenon in the world of digital development: the monolith syndrome. Not the kind found in government buildings—we already know those are ugly and oppressive—but the one from 2001: A Space Odyssey. That perfect, black, impenetrable structure that appears out of nowhere and changes history… without explaining a single thing.
That’s what many apps feel like today. Especially in health tech, where every developer wants to leave their legacy as if they were building a Notre Dame cathedral just to measure blood pressure. And no, nobody asked for that. Most people just want to know if they can eat a banana without dying.
The problem is ego. Because the programmer’s ego doesn’t build tools, it builds masterpieces. Monuments. “Look at this beautiful algorithm, look at this clean UX, look at how I predict your blood sugar, your mood, and your romantic future just by entering your weight and zodiac sign.”
And meanwhile, the user opens the app, sees 12 buttons, 4 graphs, 2 push notifications, and decides they’d rather die without monitoring. Because apparently, living with a chronic illness is less stressful than using an app that thinks it’s the Oracle of Delphi.
Minimalism isn’t an aesthetic. It’s common sense with good taste. It’s knowing that less isn’t too little, but just enough. It’s having the decency not to turn a glucose meter into an escape room.
But to get there, you have to go through the hell of “feature creep”: that stage where you believe everything can be improved with one more layer. “What if it also has a forum?” “What if it generates motivational memes?” “What if it suggests keto recipes based on your mood of the day?” And so on, until the app becomes a functional Frankenstein with the elegance of a middle school PowerPoint presentation.
And then, when everything fails, enlightenment arrives. Minimalism appears not as a stylistic choice but as a surrender. As a last resort before collapse. And that’s when the alchemy happens: you delete, you reduce, you simplify. You turn the monolith into a stone. The monument into a tool. The insult to the user into a kind gesture.
True success isn’t in what you offer, but in what you intelligently omit.
Because at the end of the day, no one wants to live a space odyssey every time they open their phone to check on their health. What they want is functionality. Something that works without explanation. That serves without showing off. That’s just there, like silence when you need to think, like a useful stone in your pocket… not a block of granite that demands adoration.
So yes: in development, as in life, true genius isn’t about inventing more. It’s about having the courage to let go. To delete. To be silent. To make the complex feel like simple magic.
And if that’s not revolutionary… then everything is wrong.