The burglar demanded the keys to his Porsche.
“Do you know how to drive a manual?”, my neighbour asked.
“Fine", the intruder grumbled. "Give me the keys to your VW instead!”
I don’t know how my neighbour had the presence of mind, during a home invasion, to ask such a revealing question of the person stealing from him, but it worked.
He got to keep his vintage Porsche because the intruder couldn’t drive it.
Sometimes, friction is your friend.
We often think of friction – anything that slows us down or makes something harder – as a bad thing.
And as a general rule, we should aim to reduce unproductive friction to make things easier for our customers: easier sign-ups, faster checkouts, simpler choices.
But in some contexts, adding friction protects value.
In this case, the "friction" was a manual gearbox. That tiny bit of difficulty, that one requirement the intruder couldn’t meet, kept a highly valuable asset safe.
Likewise:
- Two-factor authentication is friction, but it keeps our data secure.
- Cooling-off periods delay decisions, but they prevent impulse buys.
- Harder-to-access savings accounts make it more likely we’ll leave the money untouched.
Friction isn’t always the enemy. Sometimes, it means your customer gets to keep what they value.
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