Indie dev: making prompt compression automatic instead of one click made usage jump
Wonderful-Pudding71 · reddit · 2026-11-08
An indie developer shares a lesson from months of building a prompt compression tool: the original flow required users to click a button, review the compressed version, then decide whether to send — and most people installed it but never used it. Last week he switched it to intercept the send button automatically: compress, inject, send, with a toast showing tokens saved. Usage jumped immediately.
His takeaway: if users have to change their behavior even slightly, most won't — the product must fit into the existing motion. He asks others for examples where removing one step made the whole product click.
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