The middle-class burden of digital products

Stuck between scarcity and abundance, we learn that the real challenge isn’t choice itself, but knowing when enough is enough.

A man standing in front of brightly lit vending machines at night, staring at rows of colorful drinks with a look of hesitation, symbolizing the overwhelm of too many choices. — Photo by Victoriano Izquierdo on Unsplash about “Overwhelm of too many choices”.

A few days ago, my partner and I received a shopping voucher worth 500K rupiah ($30). At first, it felt exciting. We already had a plan: both of us needed new denim pants, and this voucher would cover it. We agreed on one rule, the total spend shouldn’t go beyond 20% above the voucher’s value. Simple enough, right?

Two days later, after walking through malls, checking store after store, and chasing discounts, we found ourselves exhausted and frustrated. The “standard” range for a single pair of denim pants was 500K to 1M rupiah. The voucher that was supposed to be a treat turned into a source of stress. We couldn’t decide, we couldn’t settle, and we ended up feeling defeated.

This reminded me of something I recently read: the paradox of the middle class is not material hardship, but psychological exhaustion. The struggle isn’t about survival or luxury, but about the constant pressure to optimize every choice. And I realize, this is the story of our lives in the middle: where even a shopping voucher for denim pants can become a tightrope of stress.

Stuck between scarcity and abundance, we learn that the real challenge isn’t choice itself, but knowing when enough is enough. That’s not only true in life, but also in the products we design.

When products mirror middle-class stress

In life, the middle class suffers from the paradox of choice: too many options to ignore, but not enough resources to explore freely. In products, users face the same trap.

Streaming platforms: how often do we spend 30 minutes browsing only to rewatch something familiar? The abundance of choice doesn’t empower us, it paralyzes us.
E-commerce: buying a “simple” item like headphones can spiral into hours of tab-hopping, review-checking, and discount comparisons. The more options we have, the less confident we feel.
Productivity tools: dozens of features for calendars, to-do lists, or dashboards often make us busier managing the tool than actually doing the work.

These examples show that products, just like life in the middle class, often confuse empowerment with excessive deliberation.

The hidden cost: Decision fatigue

Decision fatigue is not just a psychological theory, it’s a measurable friction in user behavior. People stall, abandon carts, leave apps, or simply churn because the effort of deciding outweighs the value of acting.

The denim voucher story mirrors this perfectly: instead of enjoying the gift, we spent more energy optimizing it than benefiting from it. Many users feel the same when faced with endless menus, filters, and comparison charts. The more we ask them to choose, the less joy they find in the outcome.

What products can learn: Peace, not perfection

The lesson is simple: sometimes the most valuable feature is not more options, but relief from options.

Curation beats catalog: Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” doesn’t give you millions of songs to choose from, it gives you 30 songs every Monday. That constraint creates relief, not stress.
Defaults save energy: Apple’s ecosystem thrives on strong defaults, from settings to design. Most users never change them, and that’s a feature, not a bug.
“Good enough” paths: TikTok’s “For You Page” doesn’t make you choose, it just plays. The product optimizes on your behalf, sparing you the fatigue of deciding where to start.

They are survival strategies in a world drowning in choice.

Spotify Daylist: A lesson in reducing choices

My denim voucher experience showed how overwhelming it is to be “mid” — stuck between scarcity and abundance. Spotify’s Daylist is a great product example of how to solve that exact problem.

On paper, Spotify has more content than anyone could ever want: 100 million songs, 5 million podcasts, and infinite playlists. In theory, that much choice should feel liberating. In practice, it’s paralyzing. Many of us have experienced scrolling for 20 minutes, skipping through tracks, or defaulting back to the same old playlist because searching feels like work. That’s decision fatigue in action.

Daylist tackles this by flipping the model. Instead of throwing the library at you, Spotify gives you one personalized playlist that evolves throughout the day.

In the morning, it might be cozy hiking Sunday.
By afternoon, it shifts into lo-fi Sunday vibes.
Later in the evening, it becomes smooth French RnB.

The brilliance is the relief. Users don’t need to decide what mood they’re in, what genre they want, or what search term to type. Spotify makes the choice for them, but in a way that feels intimate, playful, and still theirs.

Three smartphone screens showing Spotify’s “daylist” feature with personalized playlists titled “chant anime monday morning,” “chill opm monday evening,” and “indie singer-songwriter thursday early morning,” illustrating how the app curates evolving music moods throughout the day to reduce decision fatigue. — How the Spotify Daylist curates evolving music moods throughout the day to reduce decision fatigue.

That’s why the feature feels so personal. As one user said: “I’ve never felt more seen in my life.”

This is the opposite of the middle-class trap. My voucher pushed me into over-optimization, drained the joy out of a gift, and left me with nothing. Daylist removes the burden of optimization, turns discovery into delight, and deepens loyalty.

For me, the takeaway is clear: the best products don’t just give options, they protect users from the weight of having to choose.

What if swipe-up was more like Daylist?

The spirit of Spotify’s Daylist isn’t just music, it’s about protecting users from decision fatigue. Instead of forcing you to dig, compare, and optimize, it delivers something “good enough” that feels personal and fresh.

Now imagine that applied to endless swipe-up experiences:

News swipe-ups: Instead of endless snippets competing for attention, what if users got a curated “vibe list” of stories that update throughout the day? Morning might be “cozy catch-up,” afternoon “fast headlines,” evening “deep reads.” It would turn swiping from anxious grazing into intentional discovery.
Social reels: Instead of the algorithm throwing infinite randomness, what if you had time-bound “playlists of swipes”? A “Tuesday night laugh list” or “Saturday morning calm scroll.” Each finite, themed, and designed to end.
Commerce feeds: Instead of endless product catalogs, imagine a “daylist” of 10 items tuned to your current context — payday, weekend, holiday mood. You don’t drown in options, you get a curated shelf.

The big shift here is from infinity to intimacy.
Endless feeds are built on the logic of keep swiping, maybe the next one is better. Daylist is built on the opposite logic: stop swiping, this is good enough right now.

Mockup of a curated swipe-up feed shown on a smartphone screen. Annotations highlight two design principles: “Finite, themed playlist instead of infinite scroll” on the left and “Each set designed to end giving closure, not fatigue” on the right. At the bottom, a tagline reads “Curated swipes = clarity.” The visual illustrates how curated sets can replace endless feeds to reduce decision fatigue. — The visual mockup illustrates how curated sets can replace endless feeds to reduce decision fatigue.

If we brought that spirit into swipe-up products, we’d be moving from maximization (more content, more time, more ads) to resonance (enough content, timely content, emotionally right content). In a way, it’s designing for peace over perfection.

From the attention economy to the age of intimacy

For the past decade, digital products have been built on the logic of abundance. More feeds, more features, more choices. All in the name of “engagement.” This mirrors the middle-class trap: giving users enough to feel empowered, but not enough to feel at peace.

But abundance has a cost. The attention economy thrives on infinity feeds, but users pay with exhaustion. Decision fatigue, burnout, and churn are the hidden taxes of “endless scroll.”

The future belongs to products that protect attention, not just capture it. Spotify Daylist is one glimpse of that future. AI-powered curation, if designed well, can shift us from infinite choice to timely resonance.

In other words: the next wave of product innovation won’t come from scaling options, but from designing intimacy, experiences that feel personal, finite, and “enough.”

The virtue of knowing when to stop

In life, as in products, perfection is a trap. Optimization is important, but only up to a point. The wisdom lies in knowing when to stop, when “good enough” is enough.

My denim voucher taught me that peace is sometimes more valuable than maximizing every rupiah. And as product builders, maybe our task is the same: not to overwhelm people with choice, but to design for clarity, relief, and moments of peace. At the same time, curation should never take away free will. The role of good design is to guide, not to dictate, to offer a path of ease while still allowing users to step off and explore if they choose.

Because true empowerment is not in having all the options, but in not having to carry the burden of them. Sometimes the most radical act of design is to simply say: this is enough.

Author’s Note:
This reflection was born from a small but stressful experience, a voucher that turned into decision fatigue. It reminded me how being “mid” often means carrying the weight of too many choices with limited resources, and how this mirrors the way digital products are built today. My hope is that this piece sparks conversation among product builders: that sometimes the best design is not about giving more, but about knowing when to stop.

Design should be about creating peace without removing choice. That’s the lesson I want to carry forward.

The middle-class burden of digital products was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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