We were adding a custom notification scheduler that product had pushed for three months. I pulled usage data and saw 94% of users never touched advanced settings. I flagged it to the PM, we cut it from the roadmap, and it never shipped.
Data-driven cut with no real cost — usage stats, not a principled argument about why it shouldn't exist.
We were shipping a location-based notification feature and I pushed hard to pull it. Privacy tradeoffs felt wrong. After two weeks of debate, leadership didn't kill it — they moved it to Q3. It shipped six months later without my changes.
Values-based conviction with genuine cost — pushed on privacy, lost, and names it honestly.
We were adding a note-pinning feature to a focus app. I killed it three weeks in — pinning created a second organizational layer that contradicted the app's single-priority model. My PM pushed back hard. We shipped without it. Retention actually improved.
Identifies a structural contradiction in the product model — reasoning is principled and survives the outcome.