And I think the tension lies in that baking in value often means limiting choice. You win on simplicity but sacrifice modularity.

This is the tradeoff Brave makes here.

For the average user, that’s a win. For the power user? Sometimes it sucks. Now, is the average internet surfer a power user?

Brave gives you a sealed box of "it just works", but that also means you can’t always reach under the hood.

So yeah, you can’t install your own bitwarden plugin on Android Brave (for now). Jumping paywalls may not be part of their business model.

This doesn’t contradict the "frictionless wins" principle, but rather reinforces it:

Brave optimizes for default outcomes, not universal flexibility. Cursor does the same. So does Apple. So does Linear.

And like with Apple: Hackers will jailbreak. Some will use something else. But the majority will take what works by default and keep moving.

So if you’re designing tools, this is the real takeaway:

You can’t frictionlessly serve everybody and you have to pick who you’re frictionless for.