In economics, the resource curse describes countries rich in oil that remain poor in everything else. Writing apps are the same: abundant features, impoverished writers.
The Curse
In economics, the resource curse describes nations rich in natural resources (oil, minerals) that paradoxically remain poor in human development. The abundance becomes a trap — it displaces the harder work of building real capability.
Writing apps have their own resource curse. Notion has 400+ features. Google Docs has 200+ menu items. Word has been accumulating toolbars since 1983.
The apps got rich. The writers got stuck. The abundance of features displaced the harder work of actually writing.
The Cognitive Load Connection
Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988) distinguishes between intrinsic load (the inherent complexity of the task) and extraneous load (unnecessary complexity from the environment).
Every toolbar in a bloated writing app is extraneous load. It does not help you write. It costs you mental energy. It competes with the words for space in working memory.
The research is unambiguous: reducing extraneous load improves performance on the primary task. Fewer options, better writing.
Constraint as Economic Policy
Wretify's constraint is not minimalism as aesthetics. It is a deliberate economic philosophy — the same insight that transformed resource-cursed economies.
The solution in economics: invest in human capital instead of extraction. The solution in writing: invest in the writer's attention instead of adding another toolbar.
Eight features that work extremely well. Not 350 that work adequately.