VER-XIII-0038
“Buying things takes one tap now and I've stopped feeling the money leave.”
The friction is gone by design, one tap, saved card, no cash crossing your hand, so the part of you that used to flinch never gets the signal. That frictionlessness is engineered to separate you from your money painlessly. Master it by putting the friction back where the machine removed it.
Your Practice
- Delete saved cards from the apps that make buying thoughtless. Make yourself type it each time.
- Impose a waiting period, 24 hours minimum, on anything non-essential.
- Switch to cash or a single debit account for discretionary spending so you feel it leave.
- Total a week of one-tap purchases. Seeing the sum is the friction the app deleted.
The Architects
“I was more motivated by curiosity. Never by the desire for financial gain. I just wondered how things were put together.”
Claude Shannon, Interview with Anthony Liversidge, Omni magazine, August 1987; as reprinted in Claude E. Shannon: Collected Papers (IEEE Press, 1993)