[xiphias2]

From my experience most of the complexity doesn't come from adding stuff (where intuition is the only thing you have, and this rule doesn't help), but when removing/refactoring stuff, or the lack of doing it.

A recent known example is Elon Musk removing a lot of services in Twitter that were built over the years. Every addition probably improved the system's functionality, but the more complex a codebase gets, the harder it is to change separate pieces (by definition of complex).

I believe it was a big business mistake of him buying Twitter (especially as Tesla is getting competitors, like BYD growing by 100% a year), but removing services in itself probably makes the code more manageble by a smaller team.

[p_l]

Seeing as how the service is way more buggy and unreliable since then...

If I compared it to monkey with a wrench in server room, I'd be doing the monkey a disservice.