Cognitive-Bias

I spent six months building a SaaS product that nobody wanted. The code was beautiful. The architecture was solid. I’d invested countless nights and weekends. I’d turned down freelance work to focus on it. I’d told everyone it was going to be “the one.” And the market response was… crickets. Any rational person would’ve shut it down and moved on. Instead, I spent another six months trying to “make it work.” I pivoted. I added features. I changed the pricing. I rewrote the landing page seventeen times. ...

I used to think Tailwind CSS was terrible. Not because I’d used it extensively. I’d tried it for maybe an hour, felt uncomfortable, and decided it was “just inline styles with extra steps.” Then I spent the next six months seeing only evidence that confirmed my belief: Blog posts criticizing Tailwind? Bookmarked and shared. Tweets praising Tailwind? Scrolled past or found reasons to dismiss them. Projects struggling with Tailwind? “See, I knew it was problematic!” Projects thriving with Tailwind? “They would’ve been fine with CSS modules.” I wasn’t evaluating Tailwind objectively. I was collecting ammunition to defend a conclusion I’d already made. ...

I once watched a junior developer with three months of React experience tell a senior architect with 15 years of experience that “Redux is dead and anyone still using it doesn’t understand modern development.” The senior architect smiled politely and continued the code review. That junior developer was me. And I was living proof of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. If you’ve ever wondered why the least knowledgeable people often have the strongest opinions, or why beginners sometimes appear more confident than experts, you’re about to understand one of the most fascinating cognitive biases in psychology. ...