In the tech industry, growth is treated as a moral good.
More users means success.
Faster adoption means validation.
Scale becomes proof that something is worth building.
We don’t see it that way.
Not because growth is bad —
but because unconditional growth quietly breaks the very things we care about.
Growth Is a Tool, Not a Goal
Growth, by itself, is neutral.
It becomes a problem when it turns into a target detached from consequences.
When growth is the goal, decisions start bending around metrics instead of people:
- data gets collected “just in case”
- defaults get optimized for compliance
- exit paths quietly disappear
At that point, users may still feel empowered — but mostly because the interface tells them so. Underneath, real control is already shifting elsewhere
the same illusion of control that defines much of modern digital life.
What Growth Pressures Do to Products
Growth pressure doesn’t usually arrive as malice.
It arrives as compromise.
One more shortcut.
One more retention tactic.
One more dependency that’s hard to undo later.
Over time, products stop being tools and start becoming systems users must adapt to. Convenience replaces agency, not through force, but through repetition the pattern behind why users trade freedom for convenience.
From the outside, this looks like success.
From the inside, it often looks like accumulated debt.
Trust Doesn’t Scale Linearly
Trust is fragile.
It isn’t additive.
It doesn’t compound the way growth metrics do.
And once traded away, it’s rarely rebuilt.
Many products try to “grow first, fix later.”
Later almost never comes.
This is why we treat trust as a constraint, not an outcome. Systems that rely on persuasion, dark patterns, or lock-in are already telling users where priorities lie — and users feel it, even if they can’t always articulate why as explored in how trust erodes when usability is used as leverage.
Why We Design for Exit
One of the clearest signals of respect is the ability to leave.
To export data.
To stop using the product without punishment.
To change your mind.
Designing for exit puts a natural limit on growth tactics. It forces us to build systems that don’t collapse when trust is reduced — and that restraint matters more to us than short-term numbers the same principle behind digital self-sovereignty.
Retention, in our view, should be earned — not engineered.
The Cost We’re Willing to Pay
Not chasing growth at any cost is not free.
It means:
- slower adoption
- harder decisions
- features we deliberately don’t ship
It also means fewer hidden dependencies, less data accumulation, and products that behave predictably even under stress.
We accept that trade because we believe software should extend user autonomy, not quietly replace it
why software inevitably shapes personal autonomy.
Who This Is For — And Who It Isn’t
This approach isn’t for everyone.
It’s not for products built around attention extraction.
It’s not for companies optimizing for acquisition above all else.
And it’s not for users who want convenience at any price.
It is for people who value:
- reversibility over lock-in
- boundaries over optimization
- stability over acceleration
Growth will come if it comes.
But it won’t come at the cost of trust, autonomy, or the ability to say no.
A Different Definition of Success
For us, success isn’t measured by how fast numbers go up.
It’s measured by whether:
- users still have leverage
- the product still works when trust is reduced
- leaving is possible without harm
We’re not anti-growth.
We’re anti-growth that requires erosion.
Because once growth depends on taking something away from users —
it stops being progress.