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Removing stuff is never obvious yet often better

You know the nagging feeling that your product, project, or company has become more complicated than it needs to be? You can solve many problems and get better results by doing something unthinkable to many: removing parts that once seemed essential. My crusade against complexity continues with this short story

Like many companies in this situation, at Pinecone we decided long ago to put a calculator on the pricing page so would-be users can estimate their costs based on their intended usage pattern. The calculator also gave users a false sense of confidence, which meant they were unlikely to double-check the estimate by reading the docs, contacting the team, or trying it for themselves. We’d save a lot of time on internal discussions and stop losing prospective customers who misunderstood the product's cost.

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