A great user experience brings us value only when we are rich enough. It is a bold statement I know, but in this post I’ll try to argument it.

In the economic theory there is a concept known as diminishing marginal utility:

… the marginal utility of a good or service is the utility gained (or lost) from an increase (or decrease) in the consumption of that good or service. Economists sometimes speak of a law of diminishing marginal utility, meaning that the first unit of consumption of a good or service yields more utility than the second and subsequent units.

To explain it simply, we can use the thirst/water analogy.

When you are really thirsty you’d pay as much as you can for the first few drops of water, but much less for the last few drops in the bottle.

You wouldn’t care t0o much about the design of the bottle when thirst would actually be the problem you are trying to solve.

However in a world with immense supply, where you can get even the first drops of water for a relatively low price (or part of income), the problem of thirst is solved and a high marginal utility needs to be created elsewhere addressing another problem.

Perhaps in a bottle design that will be shaped better, or a bottle design that will communicate specific values and place the owner in a special social group.

Now let’s try to apply this thinking to a mobile & web product environment.

If there is no existing solution to a problem, the marginal utility of the solution on the market is huge and the people that are on the verge of dying without it would pay absolutely anything to get it.

But when such a solution becomes a commodity, the extra edge and new high marginal utility can be found in the experience around the solution. That is why services like Path or Instagram have good odds of causing some serious damage to the existing web mastodons in respective areas.

To really value good UX we need to be rich enough to be able to afford the basic experience with no sacrifice. That is why design becomes important once a specific point in an industry is reached and why several startups enjoyed huge success even without a great design or user experience.