Somewhere along the way, “good” stopped meaning good.
It started meaning optimized. Clickable. Algorithm-approved.

We used to care about what something felt like. Now we care about how it performs.
The irony is that we’ve built more tools, more systems, and more automation than ever, and somehow, the work feels emptier.

Every creator, designer, or developer knows that feeling.
You start a project because you have something to say, and somewhere between the wireframes, metrics, and presentations, you start designing for engagement instead of expression.

The trap of chasing metrics

The algorithm doesn’t care about creativity. It cares about consistency.
Post more. Launch faster. Ship weekly or disappear from the feed.

We tell ourselves it’s discipline. But most days, it’s fear.
Fear of being forgotten. Fear that silence equals irrelevance.

And the more we optimize, the more everything starts to look the same.
Clean, polished, predictable. Easy to scroll past.

The cost of optimization

When you build for the algorithm, you stop building for people.
Design loses its purpose. Content loses its voice.
Everything starts chasing numbers that were never the point in the first place.

The algorithm doesn’t reward friction. But friction is where the magic happens.
The messy middle. The things that don’t make sense until they suddenly do.
That’s where originality lives, and it’s exactly what gets filtered out first.

Good work takes risk. It takes patience. And a few days where nothing clicks.
And it takes the courage to build something even when you’re not sure it’ll trend.

Building for people again

The best things we’ve built didn’t come from chasing attention.
They came from solving something that felt real. From building what made our own days smoother. From creating something we wanted to use, not something we thought would perform.

That’s what building for people looks like.
It’s slower. More deliberate. More alive.

It doesn’t feed the algorithm. It feeds curiosity.

Minimal. Focused. Fast.
Tools that don’t shout for attention, but quietly help you make things worth paying attention to.

Before you go…

The algorithm has its place. It helps people find your work.
But it shouldn’t decide what that work becomes.
Create for people first, the rest will follow.