In the technology world, speed has stopped being just a characteristic.
It has become a moral category.
Fast means right.
Slow means you’re falling behind.
That substitution is dangerous — especially in an industry that often treats momentum as progress and growth as an unquestionable good. We’ve already explained why deliberately refusing to chase growth at any cost is a conscious decision, not a lack of ambition, in our earlier reflection on why growth itself is a poor compass for product decisions.
The Real Cost of Moving Fast
Speed almost never exists on its own.
It always comes at the expense of something else: time for verification, time for reflection, time to reject bad ideas.
Most often, it comes at the expense of the user — who was never part of that decision.
Products That Demand Attention
When a product is optimized for speed, it starts demanding attention.
Constantly.
You have to track updates.
Adjust to new patterns.
Notice that familiar features behave slightly differently.
Adapt. Catch up. Relearn what already worked yesterday.
That isn’t progress.
It’s noise — and over time, this kind of noise is exactly why users abandon products they no longer trust to behave consistently or predictably, even if nothing is ever technically “broken” on paper, as we’ve seen in practice when examining how trust quietly erodes before users leave.
Stability Is a Contract
Stability is not conservatism, and it’s not fear of change.
It’s a contract.
A contract that says: if a user integrates a product into their daily work, that product won’t suddenly change the rules.
Not every change needs a justification, but when change becomes constant, explanations lose their value. Transparency alone doesn’t protect users when it replaces restraint rather than reinforcing it — a distinction we’ve already drawn when discussing why openness without limits is not the same as accountability.
Predictability Over Experimentation
A stable product doesn’t turn everyday use into a permanent adaptation process.
It doesn’t treat real users as part of an ongoing experiment.
It simply behaves as expected.
That predictability is rarely accidental. It usually comes from deliberate limits — including the decision to build fewer features on purpose, rather than expanding the surface area just because it’s technically possible, which we’ve written about when explaining why restraint is often a stronger design choice than addition.
Why Stability Doesn’t Sell
That’s exactly why stability doesn’t sell well.
You can’t demo it.
It doesn’t create sharp growth curves.
It’s almost invisible — until there’s less of it.
Speed Serves Teams, Not Users
Most teams claim they choose speed “for the user”.
In reality, speed almost always serves the team.
Users don’t need velocity.
They need outcomes that don’t break and don’t quietly change shape.
Optimizing for Longevity
We optimize not for how fast we can ship something, but for how long it can be used without friction.
That choice has consequences.
It means releasing less often.
Testing more thoroughly.
Arguing longer about decisions than about deadlines.
It means rejecting good ideas when they introduce instability.
It means accepting that some improvements aren’t worth their side effects.
Speed vs. Stability
A slow release is not a failure.
Unpredictable behavior is.
Speed is valued at the creation stage.
Stability is valued during the life of a product.
And a product that isn’t designed for a long life will almost always end up trading attention instead of trust.
We’re not interested in that.