Having something suggest networking opportunities doesn’t sound like the worst, but only if it was suggestions in their own section of the app (and not bombarding you with notifications about it either). This implementation is truly god awful and I can’t believe anyone thought this was a good idea.

It comes from a good place. Make things have more quality of life. Makes things feel smooth and responsive. Don’t make things obtuse and confusing.

The problem is that while some friction kind of sucks (I don’t think many would want clunky movement or controls), lots of experiences get thrown out with the bathwater when this goes too far.

My philosophy is that friction needs to be seen as a tool. It does something to the experience, and it needs to be considered whether removing it will improve the experience, and if so, what is being lost in the process?

Yep, exactly. That’s the good use of lack of friction. The philosophy I have is just that it shouldn’t be seen as always good no matter what. It changes the experience to remove friction, so any decision to do so should be thoughtfully done with the experience in mind.

Hear hear! This is such a plague on games and media right now. I don’t blame developers that much, because lack of friction is super commonly taught in game design courses, and it’s not always bad. It can be done waaaay too much though.