Stop Saying Democratize When You Mean Dumb Down

In the last couple of years we have seen a lot of tech startups become successful by providing simpler alternatives for well-established products.

Canva has seen impressive growth by offering a simpler graphic design tool. No-code tools like Retool are democratizing software development, Veed.io is democratizing video editing and AI is supposedly democratizing everything.

All these products make their field more accessible to people from the outside and have had a very meaningful impact on a lot of their customers. I have nothing but admiration for the tools, but I do have a problem with the narrative surrounding them. Specifically the term “democratization”.

In this context, democratization seems to mean going from using a (usually free) tool that requires study and learning to using a paid tool that does most of the work for you. Going from difficult but free to simple but controlled by a single company is almost the exact opposite of what the word democratization means.

But my issue with the phrase is much deeper. The word implies that what was there before was a form of oppression. Something was being kept from a class of people, but now finally they can access it. The reality is that if you wanted to learn graphic design, software development or video editing, you always could. There are excellent free tools available and anyone could learn to use them, if you were willing to spend the time.

When a word like democratization is used in this way it implies that having to learn things is a form of oppression. It shifts the responsibility away from the user. “It is not my fault that I don’t know Graphic design, it has not been democratized”.

This trend is even more clear with the onslaught of new AI tools that has hit the market in the last year. People are calling for the end of Software Engineers, Designers, Video Editors, Marketers and every other knowledge-based profession you can think of. You don’t need creative skills, what matters now is taste and a great idea. Yeah, about that.

You are not born with taste

The thing about taste is that people who aren't creative, don’t have it. Or at the very least, they lack the ability to express it. Anybody can look at a UI and decide that they don’t like it, but by itself that is not useful. What separates designers from everyone else is their ability to see what is wrong with a design and fix it. That is a skill that requires experience and training. Learning to use Figma takes a couple of hours. Learning to become a great designer takes years.

Design is also far from limited to the visual expression of software. Design is present in every aspect of how it looks, feels and functions. Software designers have to deeply understand who the software is for, and how it will be used. What is the user experience like for a completely new user and what is it like for someone that has been using it for years?

It is a massive puzzle that the software designer has to make sense of. It is a job that you can get better at your entire life without ever feeling that you have mastered it.

Tools are just tools

I like Canva because I am bad at design. Canva is dumbed down enough so even I can make visually appealing graphics. They are not great. But they are not terrible either. Canva accomplishes this by removing most of the actual tools from their graphic design tool, replacing it with templates and AI features. Using Canva does not make me a good designer and I am OK with that.

I almost never use no-code tools. I have been writing software for over 20 years and these tools don’t offer me anything that I can’t already do much better. These tools simply weren’t built for me.

If you are curious about design, software development or any other creative profession, by all means start with one of these simplified tools. Once you find the thing that you are passionate about, upgrade your tools and invest the time it takes to master them.

When the tools we use no longer require any skills, we no longer matter. The best design is the one generated by the best design tool and which ever company owns the best design tool has a monopoly on design.

Mastering your profession is what sets you apart in a world where every new tool seems to start a sprint for a collective race to the bottom. As AI is getting more and more efficient at generating slop, your hard-earned skillset is what is going to keep you relevant. Having to invest time in learning new skills is not oppression; it is what brings you freedom.