[mobjack]

I've A/B tested hiding functionality and reducing info density increased the number of people spending money on the site.

I was completely shocked by seeing those results initially and dove deep to look for any other negative effects from these changes but could not find any. I've repeated similar tests and the results are often similar.

From that experience, I've learned that most people are not like me or the HN crowd. The things that you complain about could actually make things easier for the majority.

[rancar2]

I’ve A/B tested this at scale with millions of users across different verticals globally. In many situations, focusing on core functions and clear information presentation helps guide the user to using the site as primarily intended based on their primary intent. It’s tough for most product teams to realize that most users really don’t want all that additional functionality they built.

[dmitriid]

Yes, you're training users to deal with unnecessary complexity, and then the competitors with less complexity swoop in and take your user base.

Thankfully for businesses with built-in complexity and unfortunately for everyone, other businesses also have the same mindset.