Defaults are decisions
When an app gets installed, the notification settings are already chosen. Someone picked them months ago, in a room no one else was in.
Most people never change them. The percentage who open settings and adjust anything is small - single digits. Everyone else runs whatever was selected before they arrived.
The person who set the default made the decision for 90% of users. They didn't argue for it. They arrived first.
The pattern extends past software. Meeting length defaults to an hour. The contract template defaults to net-30. The new hire's desk faces the wall because that's where the last person's desk was. Nobody voted on any of it. The settings just persisted.
The override exists. The menu is right there. Almost nobody opens it.
The person who controls a system isn't the one with the most authority. It's the one who chose the defaults before anyone else showed up.
Related work
Paintbox Estimation
A painting company ran its entire estimating operation from one Excel file with 14,000+ formulas. We moved it to the web without losing what made it work.
See this project →