Why feature reduction is a civic duty
Every feature demands attention, maintenance, and cognitive load. Agencies that keep adding without removing are taxing citizens.
Government digital services have a feature problem. Not too few features, too many. Every button, tab, menu item, and optional workflow adds weight. Citizens pay that weight in confusion, abandonment, and lost trust.
We call this the Feature Tax. It is the hidden cost of complexity, paid not by the agency's budget, but by the citizen's attention.
Every feature must earn its place
In consumer tech, unused features get cut. In government, they accumulate. Stakeholders request them. Vendors bill for them. Committees approve them. Nobody measures whether citizens use them.
Feature reduction is not about doing less work. It is about making the work that remains actually get used. Simplicity increases adoption. Complexity is a tax on citizens who already have limited time and patience.