A file you never see

Every product knows more than its interface admits.

A conclusion without reasoning

Recommendation systems show you the result, never the work. A tile appears on a home screen, ranked above thousands of others, and the interface gives no account of why. The data behind it is extensive. The surface is one image and a title.

Disclosure changes the feeling, not the facts

Add a line — "because you watched X" — and nothing changes in what was collected. Same events, same profile, same model. What changes is that the shape of the file becomes visible. Discomfort tracks visibility, not volume.

Honesty has a place, and it's not the main screen

So disclosure lives where it will be found least: settings, privacy pages, a screen entered once and never again. The product stays quiet on the surface and honest somewhere else.

Both decisions come from the same team, in the same week, for the same product.