This is a slight rewording of something Alex Limi once said during an internal presentation at Mozilla. The point is not about usage, but rather creation. Building something simplistic is easy, but building something simple is hard. The observation stuck with me, and I think it's a great little maxim.
Think about it in product design. Picasa was simplistic, but Instagram is simple. eBay is simplistic, but Facebook Marketplace is simple. IRC is simplistic, but Slack is simple.
To be clear, I'm not saying Picasa, eBay, or IRC are incapable. On the contrary, they're too powerful. I prefer the designs of Instagram, Facebook Marketplace, and Slack for what they can't do. Of course, whether anyone should use Instagram, Facebook, or Slack is another question. Even cigarettes can be thoughtfully designed.
Don't put too much stock in the opinion of someone who's justifying a decision they've already made.
I remember reading something like this many years ago, while comparing two different camera brands. I think it's great advice for much more than shopping, though.
“You can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards… Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.”
“If you take on a role that’s beyond your capabilities, you not only disgrace yourself in that one, but you’ve also passed up the role that you were capable of performing well.”
—The Enchiridion of Epictetus, as newly translated by Robin Waterfield in The Complete Works
“It doesn't seem to conventional-minded people that they're conventional-minded. It just seems to them that they're right. Indeed, they tend to be particularly sure of it.”
“You can't deal logically with an illogical person.”
My dad developed this phrase after working in a psychiatric hospital, and it's always stuck with me. As usual, there’s no subtext here. I’m not trying to be mysterious or send someone a message. It's just something I think about often.
I subscribe to the daily Mutts comic by email. A recent message included a quote by Marc Bekoff which resembles something I wrote in Saying goodbye to Taggy.
I wrote the following:
All animals are conscious. All animals feel comfort and pain. In that way, we are equal.
Bekoff put it differently:
Although other animals may be different from us, this does not make them less than us.