[JenrHywy]

It's very rarely a developer's role to say outright "no". It's our role to make trade-offs understandable by decision-makers, and to clearly articulate why we think something is a bad idea. Sometimes (usually...) the broader business has different goals that just delivering quality software, and I think part of being a professional is understanding that.

There is, of course, a time and a place for a hard "no". I've genuinely threatened to quit rather than implement a particularly user-hostile feature in the past.

[ISO-morphism]

I completely agree with you, and I think you've worded this better than I have.

I was trying to advocate for the middle path, where there's healthy communication from both sides, to the point that developers trust when "the business" makes a decision - not to the point of engineering completely blocking the, unquoted, business.