What Tech Writers Should Learn From the War on Friction

When everything gets easier, meaning gets harder

In 2019, a product team set a goal to increase “time in app” by 2.3%. That wasn’t a random target—it meant about $40 million in projected revenue. When someone asked what users would get from spending more time, the room fell silent.

Then someone said, “That’s not really the question we’re optimizing for.”

That moment—quiet, uneasy, revealing—says a lot about the systems we all help build. Whether we write UX copy, design onboarding flows, or document APIs, we’re part of a larger machine that rewards efficiency, engagement, and retention.

But this blog post (from A Z McCay) reminds us: sometimes what makes an experience seamless also makes it shallow.