The Most Useless Features You’ve Ever Built (And Why It Happened)

Every developer, at some point, has built a feature so useless, so completely unnecessary, that they’ve questioned their entire career. Maybe it was an overcomplicated dark mode toggle. Maybe it was an AI-powered “Hello World” generator. Maybe it was that one button the CEO insisted on having, even though nobody—not even the CEO—knew what it was supposed to do.

Useless features don’t happen by accident. They are designed, developed, and deployed with full commitment. Let’s break down how it happens—and how to stop it before your product turns into a bloated Frankenstein’s monster.

⸻

Step 1: The ‘Wouldn’t It Be Cool If…’ Moment

It always starts the same way. Someone—usually not a developer—gets a vision.

• “Wouldn’t it be cool if our login page had a 3D animated background?”
• “What if users could upload custom profile songs, like MySpace?”
• “What if our app had a built-in social network?” (Your app sells insurance, by the way.)

There is no market research. No user demand. Just vibes.

⸻

Step 2: The Stakeholder Who Won’t Let It Go

This is when a manager, a product owner, or—heaven help you—the CEO latches onto the idea like a barnacle.

• “I really think we need this.”
• “I just feel like users would love it.”
• “Our competitor has something kinda like this.”

At this point, logical arguments are useless. You are now on the Feature Death March.

⸻

Step 3: The Dev Team’s Silent Resistance

Developers know this is a terrible idea. But instead of fighting it, they:

• Ask vague clarifying questions, hoping it dies in a meeting.
• Say, “We’ll need to research feasibility,” and never bring it up again.
• Delay it behind actual priorities, hoping stakeholders forget.

This strategy works… sometimes. But if the feature makes it past this stage, it’s game over.

⸻

Step 4: The Forced Implementation

Now you actually have to build the thing.

• Requirements are nonexistent (“Just make it intuitive”).
• Design mocks are inconsistent (“Here are five different versions; pick one”).
• The deadline is yesterday.

You piece it together. It’s ugly. It barely works. But hey, it’s functional (kinda).

⸻

Step 5: The Grand Launch (That Nobody Cares About)

After weeks (or months) of development, the feature finally ships. The product team celebrates. The devs cry inside. And then…

🚨 Nothing happens. 🚨

No one uses it. No one asks about it. No one even mentions it. It just exists, haunting the UI like a ghost.

Eventually, someone on the analytics team confirms what you already knew:

• 97% of users never interacted with it.
• The 3% who did, clicked it by accident.
• Support requests for “How do I turn this off?” skyrocket.

And yet… no one removes it. Because what if someone needs it?

⸻

Step 6: The Legacy Burden

Fast-forward a year. The original champion of the feature has left the company. No one knows who owns it. But it’s still there, quietly breaking things in the background.

• It complicates every new feature release.
• It breaks during every major update.
• It still has one superfan who insists it’s “essential.”

And thus, it lives on. Forever.

⸻

How to Stop Building Useless Features

1. Demand evidence. If someone suggests a new feature, ask: Who actually wants this? If there’s no data, it’s a hard pass.
2. Calculate opportunity cost. Every useless feature takes time away from something valuable. Make sure it’s worth it.
3. Be brutally honest. If something is useless, say so. It’s better to kill bad ideas early than waste months building them.
4. Track usage after launch. If a feature flops, don’t let it rot—remove it. Dead features slow everything down.

⸻

Your Turn: What’s the Most Useless Feature You’ve Ever Built?

Let’s hear the worst ones. Did you have to build a “share to fax” button in 2024? A blockchain-powered to-do list? Tell your war stories in the comments!