Can AI save us from dark patterns?
The world needs more slim software. I'm building one called YAAT.
I recently caved and paid for an OpenSnow subscription. As much as I love their in-depth snowfall forecasts, I wish I didn’t have to download yet another app, create an account, and purchase a paid subscription — all just to check a simple weather report. Surely this could’ve been a webpage.
I don’t mean to criticize any app specifically. I think most of you would agree that, in general, monetization is ruining the internet. The information economy promised to solve our problems at scale, but between us and the solutions to our problems lies a gauntlet of captchas, logins, downloads, and paywalls designed to acquire users and extract value from every interaction. App fatigue is real, and growing more acute by the day. Pushy, dark patterns have become a fact of life on the internet.
It’s a natural state of affairs — profit-driven companies offer more feature-rich, better distributed products that are maniacally optimized for consumer behavior. Requiring payment to overcome friction is an effective way to monetize, and businesses must monetize to survive. But it’s hard to shake the feeling that we've all begrudgingly accepted frustrating user experiences for nobody's sake but companies trying to turn a profit.
The issue isn't technical limitations, or even lack of creativity. It's an insidious paradigm that rewards bloatware. Another fun word for this is “enshittification”. We’ve thoroughly normalized digital experiences that prioritize user acquisition over user experience, because businesses are rewarded for optimizing downloads and conversion, not for creating elegant solutions. This made sense when software development was expensive and complex. But now, as AI drastically reduces development costs, the dark paradigm is becoming less justifiable. Core functionality can be built on the order of days or weeks rather than months, opening the door for scrappier entrants to tackle bigger problems.
With the emergence of prompt-to-code-to-deployment AI tools like lovable.dev, replit, and bolt.new, anyone with a clear vision can build highly effective utilities that would have been economically unfeasible before. Need a specialized countdown timer for your brewing process? An interactive planner for your class’s field trip? A personalized meal prep tracker? These hyper-specific tools don’t need teams of engineers or venture funding — they can be created by individuals with an idea and just a little know-how and patience. We're entering an era where purpose-built utilities will proliferate, each addressing a narrow but real need without the baggage of trying to please everyone, or feeling the pressure to rapidly monetize.
The assistance of AI is presenting us a new class of software, less beholden to financial incentives and more user-focused and pleasant to use as a result. In contrast to the bloatware that surrounds us, I’ll call this “slim software”: digital productivity tools that address their use cases with the straightforwardness of turning a tap for running water. Slim software reimagines every step between the user and their solution — no logins unless absolutely essential, no downloads if a web version will suffice, no paywalls interrupting the flow of core functionality. Slim software rejects the temptation of monetizing through friction.
While slim software shares some DNA with the open source movement and home-cooked apps, its primary focus is the removal of artificial barriers between users and solutions. This doesn’t mean that slim software is strictly anti-monetization or anti-download, only that these should not unnaturally obstruct the user experience. Slim software celebrates craft and purity of user experience. And as AI lowers the cost of building and deploying software, I believe slim software will supersede incumbents — starting with simple use cases and moving upmarket as its capabilities grow.
Over the years I’ve used a few tools that impart this satisfaction, and some of these well pre-date the era of AI. A few examples of slim software:
JSON Parser turns any JSON string into a navigable visual structure with no frills.
TLDraw presents a “just works” whiteboard in the browser.
TinyPng compresses PNG images.
Holiday Optimizer helps schedule vacations that make the most of PTO days.
Even Google has their hat in this ring, with simple built-ins when you search “color picker” or “30m timer”. And now, as AI code generation tools mature, slim software will increasingly replace a generation of clunky, demanding apps we've reluctantly accepted.
If you think it, build it
As a hobby developer following the rapid progression of AI coding assistants, I couldn't resist applying these technologies to solve one of my own biggest frustrations: the headache of managing money on group trips. Splitting complex receipts, juggling currencies, and tracking expenses with friends is a damper on otherwise great experiences, and I suspect I'm not alone in this feeling. This presented the perfect opportunity to put slim software into practice by building something I'd actually use myself.
The timing couldn’t be more relevant — with tourism costs rising significantly post-pandemic, splitting expenses has evolved from a courtesy to an economic necessity. Yet our tools for managing these costs feel frustratingly primitive. Existing solutions remain irritatingly behind the times, ranging from DIY spreadsheets to tools like Splitwise that force everyone to create accounts, limit daily entries by default, and still look and feel like they’re stuck in 2010. So, leveraging AI tools like Cursor, Claude, and LLM APIs for OCR, I created YAAT (yet another accounting tool), the slim solution I’ve long wished for.
I designed YAAT (getyaat.com) to work entirely in the browser, function properly without requiring anyone to sign in, and handle expense sharing in the simplest way I could imagine. At the dinner table, it lets you snap a photo of the receipt, assign items to people, and settle up through Venmo. A shareable link shows how much everyone owes. At no point do you have to verify an email, download an app, or ask anyone else to do the same.
On longer trips, YAAT scales seamlessly to dozens of expenses across days or weeks, in multiple currencies, with everyone able to add their contributions through a simple shared link. Whether it's a single dinner or a series of expenses over a ten-day international adventure, YAAT is designed to make tracking effortless. I’ve tested it on a few trips and I’m excited to be in the process of sharing it with beta testers as I iron out the kinks (and please let me know if you’re interested in trying it for yourself!)
Is this revolutionary technology? No. Expense splitting apps have been done to death. But I don't think any existing product in the space has gone this far to deliberately remove unnecessary barriers between people and solutions. The novelty isn't in what it does, but what it doesn't do — it doesn't demand anything from you first.
As a personal project rather than a venture-backed startup, YAAT doesn't need to extract value from users to justify its existence. This freedom means I can say no to dark patterns and unnecessary friction. This is my small contribution toward a future where software purely serves people rather than investors.
After all, the true promise of technology has always been empowering people at scale. Yet somewhere along the way, we've accepted a model that often feels like a false choice — giving up convenience and privacy for basic functionality. But as development costs fall and user expectations rise, I'm optimistic that the barriers to building better experiences will crumble.
If you consider yourself a builder, this is your sign: the age of AI-driven software development can help you create solutions that once required whole engineering teams. Countless everyday frictions await transformation — no venture funding required, just thoughtful individuals committed to eliminating complexity. What problems can you solve in a slimmer way?
We deserve software that just works. If the ideals of slim software resonate with you, embrace tools like YAAT that embody this methodology, and celebrate developers who choose functionality over friction. Let's reclaim software that respects our privacy, disk space, and attention.