1. Instead of just removing the feature, hide the feature and call it unsupported so the users who remember the feature can't complain yet.
2. Then finally remove the feature in the next update, with justification that it was an unsupported option and used by few people, so users can't complain.
Frog boiled. With each update the company seems to be acting rationally on "metrics" and principles, but the decision was set internally before that.
- Compact mode is rarely used and a pain to maintain
- If we hide the feature, what's the user reaction?
- Minimal user reaction to hiding, we're safe to remove
I didn't even know about it until after it became unsupported.
remove features: “product is tricking us”
I’d hesitate to call something like optional compact UI metrics “bloat”. To me the term is better applied to e.g. features associated with only tangentially related services or something running in the background sucking up CPU cycles for little user benefit… basically the modern Microsoft playbook.
