The hidden cost of comfort

Why your product risks becoming the next bad Taxi Ride

I was sitting in the back of a taxi on Sunday night on my way home BWI.

I tend to prefer them for trips home from the airport due to their availability.

Airports make ride sharing a pain. Go to another concourse, over a bridge to a special waiting area. Pay more than a taxi and wait 15 minutes or more.

As the ride progressed, I couldn’t help but notice how many jarring corrections the driver was making. A sudden start, a lane shift, a stop.

There was some traffic on the Baltimore Washington Parkway but it wasn’t intense.

I started to wonder: why are Taxi drivers so bad at driving?

This wasn’t the first time I’ve had the thought but I wasn’t distracted on my phone or iPad.

They drive professionally after all.

This was noticeably bad.

And then it dawned on me: familiarity breeds contempt.

My taxi driver must be more desensitized to their surroundings than the average driver. They must have customer interaction fatigue. They have likely, long ago, become complacent with car maintenance.

I don’t think my driver was trying create a poor user experience. But it happened and they were none the wiser.

In Tech we must be vigilant

On Digital Products

Think about those you use most often. We tire of interfaces that feel stale or limiting. Familiar tools, no matter how efficient, can feel outdated.

This causes churn and leads us to seek out new more dynamic alternatives—even if they are just marginally better.

On the Development Side

Older technology can disillusion developers. They find legacy code too limiting and clunky. This contempt breeds impatience and fewer updates. It also makes devs reluctant to work on tech stacks in favor of the "new shiny" language. This harms software's longevity and quality.

On Innovation

Using only well-known methods stifles innovation. Some things are called "best practices." They're really just "de facto standards."

Familiarity with "how things have always been done" limits breakthroughs. It discourages experimentation. Teams can get so focused on small improvements that they miss the next big opportunity.

On Cybersecurity

Familiarity with a system breeds carelessness. People often take security measures for granted and ignore basic protocols. As surface area increases, so do vulnerabilities and breach risks.

On Organizations

Leaders and teams that know a strategy resist change. They fear "rocking the boat."

They may find them to be unnecessary or threatening.

This leads to underinvestment in the tech stack. In the long term, it can harm a once-flourishing business and product. They will be at a competitive disadvantage.

On AI

As users get used to interacting, excitement will turn to irritation and indifference.

Users wowed by a Chatbot a year ago will now despise its predictable responses and its inability to handle nuance.

As we become more familiar with AI input and outputs, it becomes easier to ignore or underemphasize bias and errors.

As models produce results that are "good enough," developers will trust them more. This will perpetuate algorithmic biases.

How many people don’t even know your name. How many will soon have forgotten it. How many offer you praise now—and tomorrow, perhaps, contempt. — IX. 30

The jarring taxi ride is a reminder

Familiarity can be a silent killer. When we stop questioning and settle for "good enough", we grow stagnant and miss opportunities.

The lesson: watch the road, expect change, steer with purpose, and don't let comfort be the reason you coast.