I like where they're going, but I think the model is too simple. There's no "a user". Software is a response to <i>populations</i> of users.<p>An MVP is always focused on a very specific audience, the early adopters for it. It can be minimal because it's for a group of highly motivated people eager to solve a specific problem. They tend to be both experts (in the specific problem space) and explorers (in their willingness to try things out).<p>By the time a product has spent a few years growing, it is often addressing the needs of a much broader set of users, which presents a much bigger UI challenge. But it's not just a UI challenge. Take film/video editing, for example. The original film editors were all using physical gear to splice actual film together. [1] The initial target for computer-based video editors was those same expert film editors. One of those editors who made the switch pointed out that people knew they didn't know how to use his complicated set of physical tools, but assumed that since it was on a computer, they too could edit film. [2]<p>That wasn't the case, though. If you want to go from addressing the population of "expert film editor" to "person who wants to be come an expert film editor" it's a radically different problem. A very valid solution to that is keeping the interface as is and saying "go take a class".<p>Then you also have populations like "person who doesn't want to become an expert editor but wants to share a tolerable video of Bobby's first birthday". That's an argument not for a modal interface, but for a tool built for that audience and no other. Maybe it's a cut-down version of the expert one. But just as likely as it's something that does not work with a pro editor's mental model at all, but with that of the existing user.<p>[1] See, e.g., <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V8k6qMpv7E">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V8k6qMpv7E</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steenbeck" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steenbeck</a><p>[2] first video here, <a href="https://www.adapttvhistory.org.uk/post-production/post-production-avid-editing/" rel="nofollow">https://www.adapttvhistory.org.uk/post-production/post-produ...</a>