Every product manager I've ever met has a dashboard. On that dashboard is a number called "daily active users" or "time in app" or "session length." Their job is to make that number go up.
I don't have that dashboard. I don't want it.
The engagement trap
Somewhere along the way, the tech industry decided that the measure of a good app is how much time people spend in it. This is insane.
Think about the best tools in your life. Your hammer. Your toothbrush. Your car keys. Do you want to spend more time with them? Of course not. You want them to work instantly and then get out of your way.
But software doesn't work like that anymore. Software wants your attention. Software has investors who want growth metrics. Software has product managers with dashboards.
So software gets worse on purpose.
Dark patterns aren't accidents
Every annoying thing about modern apps is intentional:
- Infinite scroll exists because stopping points let you leave.
- Push notifications exist because you might forget the app exists.
- Streaks exist because guilt is a powerful motivator.
- Social features exist because peer pressure keeps you coming back.
- Gamification exists because variable rewards are addictive.
None of this is accidental. Thousands of very smart people spent years figuring out how to make you unable to put your phone down.
And it worked. The average person checks their phone 96 times a day. That's not a feature. That's a symptom.
The alternative
What if we just... didn't do that?
What if an app's success was measured by how little time you spent in it? What if the goal was to solve your problem and then disappear?
This sounds obvious, but it's genuinely radical in 2026. It means:
No engagement metrics. I don't track how often you open the app. I don't care. If you open it once a week, great. If you open it ten times a day, also fine. It's not my business.
No notifications by default. If you want reminders, you can turn them on. But I'm not going to interrupt your dinner to tell you to log your dinner.
No social features. Your eating habits are not content. Your workout is not a post. Your personal data is not something to share with strangers for validation.
No streaks. Missing a day doesn't break anything. You're not starting over. You're just continuing.
Why this is hard
Building apps this way is financially stupid.
Investors want growth. Growth means more users spending more time generating more data that can be monetized. An app that people use briefly and then close doesn't look good on a pitch deck.
This is why I don't have investors. This is why While True Love is a small workshop, not a startup. This is why we'll probably never be a billion-dollar company.
I'm okay with that.
The apps I want to exist
I want a calorie tracker that takes 10 seconds to log a meal. I want a safety app that works with one tap. I want a notes app that opens instantly and syncs silently.
I want apps that respect the fact that I have a life outside of my phone. Apps that assume I'm busy. Apps that do their job and then get out of the way.
So that's what I'm building.
Every app at While True Love is designed around a simple question: what's the fastest path to done?
Not the most engaging path. Not the stickiest path. The fastest path.
Because your time is worth more than my metrics.
The real product
Here's something I've learned: when you stop optimizing for engagement, you start optimizing for quality.
If people only open your app for 30 seconds, those 30 seconds better be perfect. Every pixel matters. Every interaction matters. There's no room for bloat or confusion or unnecessary steps.
Constraints create quality. And "people should want to close this app" is a hell of a constraint.
It forces you to be good.