The Fight with Friction

After spending 30 years in IT, I love trying new technology. When I read about a unique software application or a self-hosted alternative to some subscription service, I feel an immediate urge to set it up. I want to see how it works. So I install it, configure it, get it running, and for a few days or weeks, I feel the satisfaction of a new tool doing something well.

Then the friction starts.

A new update introduces a feature I don’t need. A pop-up notification appears to inform me of a premium subscription and its features. The tool still technically works, but it’s asking me for something now. Time, attention, troubleshooting. A quiet cognitive tax of knowing there’s something needs to be messed with. Recently I’ve started asking myself a question: is this software tool serving me, or am I serving it?

I’m betting most people never ask this question. We’re conditioned to hoard software, but never curate. Every conference talk, every blog post, every vendor pitch is about what to adopt next. A new platform. An app that will streamline something you’re currently doing and cook you breakfast in the morning. More software applications on the computer, more capability to do things better than the old way of getting things done.

But nobody talks about what all that software cost you.

Every app you install is an agreement for performing maintenance in the future. Every subscription is a recurring hit to your checking account, even if the amount is small. The accumulated friction of keeping your installed software running begins to reach a point where the list grows unmanageable, pruning and uninstalling becomes important, but the overwhelm of that process either leads to denial or deferment to “someday.”

I have a slim personal technology landscape. At home I run a headless server that does a few specific things. Less than five. I don’t need an App Store full of tools running in the background. I have a smartphone with 17 apps installed. I own a mid-range laptop with a clean bookmark bar. Every Sunday afternoon or evening I audit what I’m running, what I’m paying for, and what I’m maintaining. With some quiet music playing in the background, I ask the same question every time: is this still essential to have in my life?

When the answer is no, I uninstall. Gone are the days of keeping an app on my device “in case I need it later.” All that software is a low latency form of friction. It sets up shop in my mind as I’m visualizing my financial account balance decreasing $5 a month...and $60 a year. For a software application not launched, not fiddled with, not giving me any results.

When the answer is no, and I uninstall, eight times out of 10 I don’t miss it. Those other two times, the app is easily reinstalled to resume development and use.

Here’s where my fight with friction gets counterintuitive, perhaps hypocritical. I’ve written in past essays about friction as something valuable. I enjoy an iPod classic music player that requires more effort to operate than a streaming service. My reading workflow has more steps to it than simply touching an app. That is a deliberate form of friction to separate deliberate focused enjoyment from mindless consumption. I go through this form of friction on purpose because it slows me down and forces me to choose.

The difference in friction categories: when a software tool that’s supposed to work in the background starts demanding my attention, that sort of friction isn’t adding value for me. It’s just one more brick in the backpack. Eventually I notice the weariness from carrying around too many bricks.

I am a curious nerd. I gladly dedicate an hour on a Saturday afternoon meant for rest and recreation and immerse myself in the ins and outs of a new software application. I like going through the process, the deliberate knowledge dive where I emerge with my own mental list of pitfalls to avoid with this software, and benefits of use once it’s set up. This is also valuable when my clients ask me about wanting to do something with their tech, or eliminate something from their own tech landscape. More and more I’m encountering people wanting to distance from the big tech companies. What can I recommend that might be of use to them? I’ve already got three or four candidates in mind based on past installations and trial periods. But what my clients don’t know is that I have a ruthless discipline in pruning software. And most importantly, what applies to me and my tech life does not necessarily apply to others.

Sadly I watch software hoarding happen in the educational technology realm often. A department adopts a tool to solve a specific problem. The problem gets solved, and the tool stays. Three years later, someone new is maintaining it, nobody remembers the original problem, and the tool has become part of the landscape. No one questions if the tool is still relevant because, “we’ve always done it this way.” Technology professionals are especially bad at this, and I’m just as much to blame. We’re wired to be problem solvers. We see a need and we reach for a tool. But my technology house isn’t built by filling every room with furniture. It’s built by knowing which rooms stay empty.

More later...