You cannot, in this day and age, launch a social app that has obvious missing features. So what triggers someone to conclude that a feature is obviously missing? One answer is using an established UX template that doesn’t have all the features seen as table stakes for that template. Another way to put this is that users have muscle memory. If you trigger this muscle memory with a templated UX, and then screw with it by not having these features, then these users are not going to like that. If you reuse a WhatsApp/Signal UX template then you need, for example, read receipts and emojis. These are table stakes for this template. If you don’t have these things then they will be seen by users as missing, indeed as gaping holes. One mistake developers often make is to assume that adding something ‘extra’ can make up for not having something expected. (“We don’t have read receipts but hey, we have zaps!”) In a muscle-memory scenario this never works. What can you add to a bicycle to make up for it not having brakes? Sure you can argue that there was a time when bicycles didn’t have breaks, but good luck with that argument. The key here is to NOT reuse a UX template that is going to trigger this muscle memory. Can’t deliver accurate follower counts? Then DO NOT reuse a Twitter UX template. Can’t deliver per-channel notification settings? Then DO NOT reuse a Discord UX template. Some caveats. First this mainly applies to the core features, the ones pretty much guaranteed to affect muscle memory. As you move to more tucked-away features then you could be okay, depending. And second this applies if you want to scale in a way that is meaningful in light of the number of human beings on planet earth. If you just want to tinker around with a few nerdy friends, do as you like. Of course certain features are hard in a decentralised context. The lesson is this. If you’ve got a UX template in mind, but it’s impossible to deliver a feature that is seen as table stakes for this template, and you’re hoping that something extra you have to add will make up for this gap—then stop. Ditch the template. Go for a totally different UX, something creative, new, not seen before, something that won’t trigger this muscle memory.