TL;DR: Every PM treats friction like a disease to be cured—but what if friction is where your values live? BeReal's 2-minute constraint creates authenticity by making staged posts impossible. Amazon's 1-click removes the pause that lets you reconsider. The craft isn't removing friction. The craft is choosing which friction to keep.
This is a thought experiment. What if we've been wrong about friction for the past decade?
Every PM I know treats friction like a disease to be cured. Remove steps. Speed up flows. Make everything one-click.
But what if friction is where your values live?
BeReal
BeReal gives you two minutes to post. That's it. Miss the window and you're marked "late" with a timestamp for everyone to see.
This is terrible UX by conventional standards. You can't edit. You can't filter. You can't wait for better lighting. Research from the University of Washington found that users explicitly said "you don't have time to get ready or make yourself look good…nobody can stage something in two minutes."
And that's exactly the point.
The app's 2-minute constraint isn't a bug. It's the feature that creates authenticity. By making staged posts functionally impossible, BeReal removed the choice architecture that makes Instagram exhausting. The friction doesn't block users from their goal. It shapes what that goal becomes.
The Dark Side: When Friction Disappears
Now look at what happens when you remove ALL friction.
A 2024 review by the FTC examined 642 subscription services worldwide. 76% used at least one dark pattern. Research on 240 popular Android apps found 95% included manipulative design elements.
Amazon's 1-click buying removed the pause that let you reconsider. LinkedIn's "Easy Apply" removed the friction that made you think about fit. TikTok's autoplay removed the moment where you could stop watching.
These aren't neutral technical improvements. Removing friction from impulse purchases doesn't serve the user. It serves extraction.
What Friction Actually Does
Friction creates three things:
- Pause for reflection (Are you sure you want to send $500?)
- Protection from mistakes (This will delete everything. Type 'DELETE' to confirm.)
- Space for values (BeReal's window says "authenticity matters more than perfection")
When you eliminate the pause, you eliminate the chance to change your mind. When you eliminate the confirmation, you eliminate the protection. When you eliminate the constraint, you eliminate what made it meaningful.
The question isn't "how do we remove friction?" The question is "which friction preserves what we care about?"
The PM Audit You Should Run
Pull up your product. List every place it slows users down.
Split them into two columns:
Accidental friction (Bugs, confusion, slow loading, unclear copy)
Intentional friction (Confirmations, waiting periods, effort requirements)
Kill everything in column one. But look hard at column two before you touch it.
That confirmation dialog that makes users type the word "DELETE"? That's not friction. That's respect for their work.
That cooling-off period before canceling a subscription? That might be protecting them from an impulsive decision during a bad day.
That BeReal-style constraint you're considering? That might be the thing that makes your product worth using.
Why This Matters Now
Research shows 90% of users have encountered dark patterns. 56% lost trust in a platform because of manipulative design.
Users are getting better at recognizing when you're optimizing for your metrics instead of their lives. And they're willing to pay more for products that don't exploit them.
The PM skills that mattered five years ago (removing friction, optimizing conversion, maximizing engagement) might be the exact skills that destroy trust today.
Where I'm Probably Wrong
This is a thought experiment, not a prescription. Some friction is just broken UX that needs fixing. And adding random constraints to your product won't magically make it better.
But I've been watching PMs reflexively remove every bit of resistance from their products without asking "what did that friction do?" And I'm starting to think we've optimized ourselves into a corner.
Maybe the craft isn't removing friction. Maybe the craft is choosing which friction to keep.
The data on dark patterns comes from 2024 research by the FTC and academic studies on manipulative design. The BeReal analysis is from University of Washington research on authentic self-presentation.