Techno Feature Fatigue

I.T. is waking up to the benefits of minimalism thanks to feature fatigue among consumers (who simply want things to work) and strong demand from less affluent consumers in the developing world, reports The Economist. Other welcome aspects of techno-austerity are software that keeps things simple to reduce distractions and the phenomenon of “frugal” innovation. The latter is where new ideas on how to make I.T. applications more affordable in places like China, India and Brazil spawn products that become hits in the rich world. The Economist hopes governments will also “come to appreciate the merits of minimalism.”