The Power of Default

Google paid Apple ~$20B in 2022 to be the default search engine powering Apple’s browser.

In court, Google’s explanation for its ~90% share of the search market was simply that its product is vastly superior to the competition. But if that were actually true, why would Google pay ~15% of Apple’s operating budget just to prevent consumers from making a choice they would make themselves for free?

Because Google knows their monopoly relies on maintaining its unfair advantage as the default. Google knows how people think, Google knows how to incentivize behavior, and Google knows the power of defaults.

Default settings are deliberate design decisions. Autoplay on Netflix, the infinite scroll of content on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and the default 30 and 1 hour meetings in Google Calendar—these are all deliberate design choices made to reinforce or drive human outcomes.

In some cases, changing default settings is as easy as opening up a settings panel and a couple of taps or clicks.? Sometimes, the “choices” are fiendishly well hidden. And sometimes they aren't even choices at all.? But make no mistake, these are all design decisions, and default settings are one of the most critical design decisions that can be made. Because defaults often remove the friction that trigger systems 2 thinking (slow, deliberate, rational). Remove the friction, disarm the ability to make rational decisions, and our monkey brains fall right in line.?

Defaults shape our lives. They are all around us. Makes you wonder what other default settings have been chosen for you—and how else we could spend our finite attention capital given the choice?

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