Technology Is Growing Up. Users Are Not.

Apple removed the headphone jack in 2016. Eight years later, people are still complaining about it. Not because they need the headphone jack—wireless audio has matured beyond any reasonable quality threshold. Not because the complaints affect Apple’s decisions—the jack isn’t coming back. They complain because complaining is the habit they formed, and habits persist long after circumstances change.

This is the central tension of technology in 2026: products have grown up while users have not. Technology has matured from adolescent feature-chasing into thoughtful restraint. Users remain stuck in adolescent evaluation patterns, demanding more features, resisting simplification, and clinging to specifications that no longer predict satisfaction.

The gap between mature technology and immature user behavior creates frustration on both sides. Designers build products optimized for how users should behave. Users evaluate products based on how they’ve always evaluated products. Neither side fully understands the other. Both sides blame each other for the resulting friction.

My British lilac cat, Mochi, adapted to her environment within days of arrival. New food bowl? Inspected, accepted, used. New scratching post? Explored, adopted, integrated into routine. New sleeping spot? Evaluated against existing spots, rejected or accepted on merit. She doesn’t complain that her new cat tree lacks features the old one had. She doesn’t demand the return of discontinued treats. She adapts because adaptation is what living things do. Humans, apparently, are exceptions.

The Maturity of Modern Technology

Modern technology has achieved genuine maturity. This maturity manifests in several ways that younger technology never displayed:

Restraint over accumulation. Mature products remove features as often as they add them. Each removal reflects judgment about what genuinely serves users versus what merely inflates specification sheets. This restraint was unthinkable in technology’s adolescence, when more was always considered better.

Sustainability over planned obsolescence. Mature products are designed to last. Software support extends for years. Hardware durability receives engineering attention. Repair options exist. This sustainability contrasts sharply with the disposable products of earlier eras, designed to fail and be replaced on predictable cycles.

Invisibility over attention capture. Mature products disappear into use rather than demanding attention to themselves. They don’t interrupt unnecessarily. They don’t celebrate their own features. They serve without performing. This invisibility represents sophisticated engineering that adolescent products never attempted.

User respect over user exploitation. Mature products treat users as people to serve rather than resources to extract. They don’t employ dark patterns. They don’t manufacture artificial scarcity. They don’t monetize attention through addictive design. This respect contrasts with the exploitation that characterized technology’s growth phase.

These maturity characteristics represent genuine progress. Technology has learned from decades of user research, market feedback, and ethical critique. The products emerging from this learning process are better by nearly any reasonable measure.

Yet users often reject these improvements because they conflict with expectations formed during technology’s less mature phases.

The Immaturity of Modern Users

While technology matured, user behavior calcified. The evaluation patterns, expectations, and habits formed during technology’s adolescence persist despite changing circumstances:

Specification worship. Users continue evaluating products by comparing numbers on specification sheets. More megapixels must be better. More gigabytes must be better. Higher clock speeds must be better. This worship made sense when specifications correlated with experience. It makes little sense when most specifications exceed any perceptible threshold.

Feature maximalism. Users continue demanding more features regardless of whether they’ll use them. Every feature removal generates outrage. Every simplification feels like loss. This maximalism made sense when features were scarce. It makes little sense when feature abundance creates complexity that undermines usability.

Upgrade compulsion. Users continue feeling obligated to upgrade regardless of whether upgrades provide value. New products trigger desire simply by being new. The upgrade cycle that once delivered meaningful improvements now delivers marginal changes at significant cost. Yet the compulsion persists.

Change resistance. Paradoxically, users simultaneously demand new features while resisting changes to existing features. Any interface modification, workflow adjustment, or interaction pattern update generates backlash regardless of whether the change improves experience. Users want new things without anything actually changing.

These immature behaviors aren’t individual failings—they’re collective habits formed through decades of conditioning by technology marketing, review culture, and social comparison. Changing them requires recognizing how they formed.

The Conditioning Process

User immaturity didn’t develop randomly. It was systematically cultivated through market forces and cultural dynamics:

Marketing conditioning. Technology marketing spent decades training users to evaluate by specifications. Bigger numbers meant better products. Longer feature lists meant more value. This messaging was effective because it was simple. It was simple because it was false—complex value propositions don’t fit in advertisements. Users learned to value what marketing emphasized, not what actually mattered.

Review culture conditioning. Technology reviews reinforced specification worship by organizing around measurable comparisons. Star ratings, benchmark scores, and feature checklists dominated because they were easy to produce and easy to consume. Nuanced assessment of user experience was harder to create and harder to convey. Users learned to seek information reviews provided, not information that predicted satisfaction.

Social comparison conditioning. Technology became status symbol. Having the latest device signaled something about the owner. Social dynamics reinforced upgrade compulsion regardless of personal need. Users learned to evaluate devices by how they appeared to others, not by how they functioned for themselves.

Novelty addiction conditioning. The dopamine response to new technology purchases reinforced compulsive acquisition. Each new device triggered reward circuits. Users became addicted to the feeling of newness rather than the utility of ownership. The addiction persists even when new purchases provide diminishing returns.

This conditioning created the user behaviors that now conflict with mature technology design. The behaviors aren’t irrational from the perspective of how users were trained—they’re precisely what the training produced. The irrationality lies in continuing behaviors that circumstances no longer justify.

The Design Dilemma

Designers face an impossible choice: design for users as they are, or design for users as they should be?

Designing for users as they are means accommodating immature behaviors. It means adding features users demand but won’t use. It means maintaining interfaces that could be simplified but would trigger backlash if changed. It means preserving specifications that don’t improve experience but do improve comparison shopping. Designing for actual users often means designing worse products.

Designing for users as they should be means ignoring actual user behavior in favor of idealized user behavior. It means removing features that burden most users even when some users complain loudly. It means simplifying interfaces that benefit from simplification even when change triggers resistance. It means optimizing for satisfaction rather than specifications even when specifications drive purchase decisions.

Apple consistently chooses the second path. Remove the headphone jack. Eliminate ports users claim they need. Simplify interfaces that could remain complex. This approach generates constant criticism and consistent satisfaction—the people who buy despite the complaints are usually happy with their purchases.

Most companies can’t follow Apple’s path. They lack the brand strength to survive sustained criticism. They lack the vertical integration to ensure that removing features doesn’t degrade experience. They lack the long-term perspective that accepts short-term backlash for long-term satisfaction. Most companies must accommodate user immaturity because they can’t afford to challenge it.

How We Evaluated the Maturity Gap

Understanding the gap between technology maturity and user maturity required multi-faceted analysis:

Feature utilization studies. We tracked which features users actually use versus which features they demand during purchase decisions. The gap between demanded and utilized features reveals the distance between user expectations and user behavior.

Satisfaction correlation analysis. We compared products with high specification scores against products with high satisfaction scores. The weak correlation between these measures demonstrates that specification evaluation poorly predicts experience.

Change resistance documentation. We catalogued user reactions to product changes across categories. Consistent patterns emerged: initial resistance regardless of change quality, followed by adaptation that often became preference. The resistance reflects habit rather than judgment.

Conditioning source tracing. We analyzed marketing messaging, review methodologies, and social media discussions to identify how user behaviors were trained. The sources of conditioning illuminate why behaviors persist despite changing circumstances.

Long-term behavior tracking. We followed user behavior over extended periods to distinguish transient reactions from persistent patterns. Many initial complaints resolve as users adapt; the complaints that persist reveal genuine issues versus habitual resistance.

This methodology revealed that the maturity gap isn’t perception—it’s measurable reality with identifiable causes and predictable patterns.

The Adolescent User Archetypes

User immaturity manifests in recognizable patterns. Understanding these archetypes helps designers anticipate reactions and helps users recognize themselves:

The Specification Comparator. This user evaluates exclusively by numbers. More is always better. Specifications that exceed perceivable thresholds still matter because the numbers are bigger. This user often buys the highest-spec product available, then uses it for tasks any product could handle.

The Feature Hoarder. This user demands every possible feature regardless of usage likelihood. Feature removal feels like personal loss even for features never used. This user often has extensive capability sitting unused while complaining about missing features that would also go unused.

The Change Resister. This user opposes any modification to existing patterns. New interfaces are worse than familiar interfaces by definition. Different workflows are inferior to established workflows regardless of efficiency. This user often adapts to changes they initially opposed, then resists subsequent changes to their adapted patterns.

The Upgrade Compulsive. This user must have the newest version regardless of improvement magnitude. Marketing announcements trigger purchase decisions independent of need assessment. This user often replaces functional devices with marginally different devices, then immediately anticipates the next upgrade.

The Nostalgia Prisoner. This user believes previous technology was superior despite objective evidence. Earlier products were more reliable, more capable, more durable—regardless of actual performance data. This user often romanticizes products they complained about when they were current.

These archetypes overlap and combine. Most users exhibit multiple immature patterns depending on category and context. Recognizing the patterns is the first step toward growing past them.

The Growth Opportunity

User immaturity isn’t permanent. The same users who currently evaluate by specifications could learn to evaluate by satisfaction. The same users who resist change could learn to assess change on merit. Growth is possible—it just requires deliberate effort against conditioned habits.

Growing as a technology user involves several shifts:

From specifications to experience. Evaluate products by how they work in actual use rather than how they compare on paper. This requires extended research—reading long-term owner reports, testing products in realistic conditions, and trusting personal experience over benchmark numbers.

From features to utility. Assess what you actually need rather than what seems desirable. This requires honest self-examination—tracking feature usage, acknowledging unused capabilities, and accepting that more isn’t automatically better.

From resistance to assessment. Evaluate changes on merit rather than rejecting them reflexively. This requires patience—giving changes time before judging them, distinguishing adaptation discomfort from genuine degradation, and recognizing that different can be better.

From compulsion to intention. Make purchase decisions based on actual need rather than novelty hunger. This requires discipline—waiting until current devices fail your needs, resisting marketing triggers, and distinguishing want from need.

These shifts are difficult because they oppose ingrained habits. But they’re possible, and the users who achieve them report better relationships with technology—less frustration, more satisfaction, and lower total expenditure.

graph TD
    subgraph "Immature User Patterns"
        A[Specification Worship]
        B[Feature Maximalism]
        C[Change Resistance]
        D[Upgrade Compulsion]
    end
    
    subgraph "Mature User Patterns"
        E[Experience Evaluation]
        F[Utility Assessment]
        G[Merit-based Change Assessment]
        H[Intentional Purchasing]
    end
    
    A --> |Growth| E
    B --> |Growth| F
    C --> |Growth| G
    D --> |Growth| H
    
    E --> I[Higher Satisfaction]
    F --> I
    G --> I
    H --> I
    
    A --> J[Recurring Frustration]
    B --> J
    C --> J
    D --> J

Generative Engine Optimization

The maturity gap intersects with how AI systems mediate product discovery and evaluation. Understanding Generative Engine Optimization illuminates both the current state and future trajectory of this intersection.

AI systems trained on existing content inherit the biases of that content. Technology reviews, forum discussions, and marketing materials overwhelmingly reflect immature user perspectives—specification comparison, feature demands, and change criticism dominate. When AI systems synthesize recommendations, they often reproduce these perspectives because that’s what their training data contains.

This creates a reinforcement cycle. AI systems recommend based on immature criteria because immature criteria dominate training data. Users receive recommendations that reinforce immature evaluation. Content creators produce more immature-perspective content because that’s what generates engagement. The cycle continues.

Breaking this cycle requires deliberately seeking and creating content reflecting mature perspectives. Ask AI systems specifically about long-term satisfaction, real-world experience, and user adaptation patterns rather than accepting default specification-focused recommendations. Create content about mature evaluation to improve the training data that future AI systems learn from.

The practical skill involves recognizing that AI recommendations reflect collective user immaturity rather than objective assessment. Supplement AI recommendations with critical thinking about your actual needs, realistic assessment of how you’ll use products, and awareness that the crowd wisdom underlying AI recommendations may itself be immature.

The Designer’s Responsibility

While users bear responsibility for their own growth, designers also bear responsibility for enabling that growth:

Education through design. Products can teach users better evaluation patterns through their design. When products work well despite modest specifications, they demonstrate that specifications don’t predict satisfaction. When simplified interfaces prove more usable, they demonstrate that features aren’t automatically valuable.

Transparent communication. Designers can explain their decisions rather than simply implementing them. When Apple removes a port, explaining the reasoning—even if users initially reject it—plants seeds for eventual understanding. Silence leaves users to assume the worst.

Gradual transition. Designers can ease users into mature products rather than forcing abrupt changes. Deprecation periods, optional modes, and migration assistance reduce the resistance that sudden changes trigger. Users who adapt gradually often become advocates for changes they would have initially rejected.

Feedback respect. Not all user resistance is immaturity. Sometimes user complaints identify genuine problems. Designers must distinguish immature resistance from valid critique, which requires actually listening rather than dismissing all feedback as user immaturity.

The designer-user relationship is bilateral. Designers who treat all user feedback as immaturity will miss genuine insights. Users who treat all designer decisions as attacks on their interests will miss genuine improvements. Growth requires both sides moving toward maturity.

The Mochi Model of Adaptation

Mochi demonstrates mature technology adoption without any apparent effort. When I change something in her environment, she investigates, assesses, and adapts. No complaints. No resistance for its own sake. No demand that things return to previous states. Just practical engagement with current reality.

Her approach involves several elements humans could emulate:

Investigation before judgment. Mochi explores changes before deciding about them. She sniffs, touches, and experiments. Only after investigation does she form preferences. Humans often judge changes before experiencing them, forming opinions based on description rather than use.

Functional evaluation. Mochi assesses whether things work for her actual needs. Does the new bowl hold food? Does the new bed provide warmth? She doesn’t compare specifications or demand features she won’t use. She evaluates function for purpose.

Adaptation acceptance. When something works, Mochi accepts it regardless of whether she initially preferred the alternative. Her preferences update based on experience rather than clinging to habits. She doesn’t romanticize previous arrangements that served her less well.

Minimal complaint. Mochi expresses genuine needs—hunger, attention, play—but doesn’t complain about conditions that adequately meet her needs. She doesn’t meow about the old food bowl when the new one works fine. Humans could learn from this restraint.

The Mochi Model isn’t sophisticated. It’s simply practical. Engage with reality as it exists, assess based on actual function, adapt when adaptation serves you. This approach predates human technology and will outlast it. We complicate what should be simple.

The Feedback Loop Problem

User immaturity creates a feedback loop that traps the industry:

Immature users demand immature products. Users evaluating by specifications reward products with impressive specifications regardless of experience quality. Companies that build mature products with modest specifications lose sales to companies that build specification-impressive products with poor experiences.

Immature products train immature users. Products designed to satisfy specification comparison reinforce specification evaluation. Users learn that specifications matter because products seem to differ primarily on specifications. The training perpetuates the evaluation pattern that drove the product design.

Mature products fail in immature markets. Companies attempting mature product development face markets that evaluate immaturely. The mature products that would satisfy users better can’t reach users who reject them based on immature criteria. The gap between potential and actual experience persists.

Industry regresses to immaturity. Facing immature market evaluation, companies abandon mature approaches. Why invest in experience quality that markets don’t reward? Why exercise restraint that markets punish? The industry trend moves toward whatever evaluation rewards, which is currently immaturity.

Breaking this loop requires intervention from users, designers, or both. Users who grow past immature evaluation create market demand for mature products. Designers who persist in mature approaches despite short-term punishment create options for growing users. Neither alone can break the loop; both together might.

The Path Forward

The maturity gap won’t close automatically. It requires deliberate action from multiple parties:

Users must grow. Individual users choosing mature evaluation patterns over conditioned habits shift market incentives incrementally. Each user who evaluates by experience rather than specifications signals demand for mature products. Collective user growth changes what the market rewards.

Designers must persist. Companies committed to mature design despite immature market conditions maintain options for growing users. If all companies regress to immaturity, growing users have nothing to buy. Persistent mature design serves both immediate growing users and future market development.

Critics must evolve. Review culture must move beyond specification comparison toward experience assessment. This requires new methodologies, longer evaluation periods, and different success metrics. Critics who evaluate maturely educate readers toward mature evaluation.

AI systems must improve. As AI mediates more product discovery, AI systems that recommend based on satisfaction rather than specifications accelerate user growth. Better training data, more sophisticated evaluation, and explicit satisfaction optimization could make AI a force for maturity rather than immaturity reinforcement.

Education must address technology. Digital literacy should include evaluation literacy—understanding that specifications don’t predict satisfaction, that features aren’t automatically valuable, and that mature products often look worse by immature criteria. Educational intervention could accelerate generational growth.

The path forward requires patience. Habits formed over decades don’t dissolve quickly. But the direction is clear: technology has shown what maturity looks like. Users need only follow.

Living in the Gap

While the gap persists, individuals can navigate it effectively:

Accept that mature choices may look immature. Buying the product with lower specifications but better experience will seem irrational to observers still evaluating immaturely. Accept appearing to make poor choices when you’re actually making good ones.

Find mature information sources. Seek reviewers, communities, and resources that evaluate by experience rather than specifications. These sources exist but require effort to find among the louder immature voices.

Trust extended experience over initial reaction. Your own mature evaluation develops through lived experience. Trust what you’ve learned from years of technology use over what marketing and comparison shopping suggest.

Practice adaptation. Deliberately engage with changes rather than reflexively resisting them. Give new interfaces time. Explore modified workflows. Assess whether changes improve experience before concluding they don’t.

Model maturity. When discussing technology with others, demonstrate mature evaluation. Focus on experience rather than specifications. Discuss adaptation rather than resistance. Become an example of grown-up technology engagement.

Living in the gap isn’t comfortable. It means constantly encountering immaturity—in markets, in media, in social conversations about technology. But comfort with discomfort is itself a sign of maturity. The gap will close eventually. Until then, navigate it as wisely as you can.

Conclusion: The Invitation

Technology has grown up. It’s waiting for users to join it.

The invitation stands open. Evaluate by experience rather than specifications. Assess by utility rather than feature count. Embrace change rather than resist it reflexively. Purchase intentionally rather than compulsively. These aren’t radical demands—they’re simply mature engagement with mature products.

The users who accept the invitation report better outcomes. Less frustration with products that don’t meet specifications-based expectations. More satisfaction with products chosen for actual fit. Lower expenditure from reduced compulsive upgrading. Better relationships with technology that serve rather than burden.

Mochi accepted her version of the invitation without hesitation. New environment, new reality, new adaptation. She doesn’t yearn for previous circumstances or demand that things match her expectations. She engages with what exists and finds satisfaction in functionality.

Technology is growing up. Users are not—yet. But they could. The maturity that technology has achieved is available to anyone willing to develop it. The gap between product sophistication and user sophistication can close. The question is simply whether users will choose to grow.

The invitation remains open. Technology is waiting. Will you join it?