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Product Management10 min read

Escaping the Feature Factory: Outcome-Based Engineering Economics

Shipping features nobody uses costs $50-150K each. Here's how to stop.

By Richard Ewing·

The Feature Factory Tax

Industry data: 60-80% of features in mature products are rarely or never used. Each unused feature costs: development ($50-150K), ongoing maintenance ($10-30K/year), cognitive load on users, and opportunity cost of what you didn't build.

The escape: ship smaller, measure faster, kill sooner. Implement usage tracking on day 1. Set a 90-day usage threshold. If a feature doesn't meet it, deprecate it. Your product gets better by subtraction.

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Published Work

This article expands on ideas from my published work in CIO.com, Built In, Mind the Product, and HackerNoon. View published articles →

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Richard Ewing

The Product Economist — Quantifying engineering economics for technology leaders, PE firms, and boards.