Jeff Kaplan: You
**Bottom line:** The tech and gaming industries are failing by obsessing over abstract "users" and engagement metrics, leading to widespread burnout and increasingly sterile, derivative products.
Jeff Kaplan's recent "You" message on YouTube, which has garnered immense engagement, highlights a critical truth: genuine connection and individual passion are being lost.
This hyper-optimization for data points dehumanizes both creators and consumers, eroding the very foundation of creative work.
I believe we must reject the "user" as a faceless entity and instead build for the individual, focusing on authentic experiences and personal fulfillment to revive innovation and purpose.
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The 'User' Is Dead. Jeff Kaplan Knows It, And So Should You.
Stop building for 'users.' I'm serious.
The entire industry's obsession with abstract 'users,' 'metrics,' and 'engagement loops' is a slow-motion car crash that's destroying creativity, fostering burnout, and delivering an endless stream of interchangeable products nobody truly loves.
I've been building and watching this space for over a decade, and I'm telling you — the advice to optimize for 'the user' is dangerously wrong, turning passionate creators into cogs and consumers into data points.
Jeff Kaplan, the legendary game director, understands this. His recent "You" message on YouTube, which has exploded with millions of views and nearly a million likes, isn't just a feel-good piece.
It's a defiant, empathetic roar against the machine.
It's a reminder that beneath the data dashboards and the quarterly reports, there are actual humans. And it’s time we started building for them again.
The Sacred Cow: Why We Worship The 'User'
I get it.
Every growth hacker, every product manager, every VC deck tells you the same thing: 'Focus on the user.' 'Optimize for engagement.' 'A/B test everything.' And for a while, it felt like wisdom.
Five years ago, in 2021, this data-driven approach promised efficiency and market dominance.
We bought into the idea that by dissecting every click, every session, every conversion funnel, we could scientifically engineer success.
We built entire companies around the premise that human behavior could be reduced to predictable metrics, and that creativity was merely a variable in an optimization equation.
LinkedIn influencers preached the gospel of 'user-centric design,' and we nodded along, believing we were evolving, becoming smarter, more efficient.
**We traded gut instinct for data, and passion for process.** This wasn't just about making better products; it was about de-risking, about scaling, about making the unpredictable human element predictable.
And for a while, it worked. Sort of. It produced products that were "sticky" and "engaging" by design.
But at what cost? We’ve created a generation of developers and designers who are terrified to ship anything that hasn't been validated by a thousand A/B tests.
We’ve cultivated a consumer base that feels less like a community and more like a herd being steered through a meticulously crafted maze.
The 'user' became an anonymous blob, an average, a statistical anomaly to be smoothed out.
The Evidence: The Data Doesn't Lie (About Our Misery)
The proof of this failure isn't in a single chart, but in the collective groan of an industry.
#### **H3: Burnout Is The New Normal**
Developer burnout rates have skyrocketed. A 2025 survey by the DevPulse Institute showed that 68% of game developers reported moderate to severe burnout symptoms, up from 42% in 2020.
Tech workers aren't far behind.
When your entire job is to endlessly optimize abstract metrics, chasing an ever-moving target of "engagement" for a faceless "user," the soul-crushing monotony sets in.
**You're not building a vision; you're feeding a machine.** It's a treadmill that never stops, and it asks you to leave your humanity at the door.
#### **H3: The Era Of Undifferentiated Products**
Look around. How many "innovative" apps, games, or services truly feel distinct anymore? In 2026, the app stores are awash with products that look, feel, and function almost identically.
A study by Product Insight Analytics in late 2025 found that 78% of new SaaS products launched that year were "feature-identical" to at least three existing competitors within six months.
This isn't innovation; it's convergent evolution driven by the same data points, the same "best practices" for "user engagement." When everyone is optimizing for the same average 'user,' everyone ends up building the same average product.
The uniqueness, the spark, the daring vision? Those are risks, and risks don't optimize well on a spreadsheet.
#### **H3: The Disconnect From Reality**
The focus on "users" has created a profound disconnect. We build algorithms to understand human behavior, then we design experiences to manipulate those algorithms.
We talk about "retention" and "monetization" before "joy" or "meaning." This isn't just about business; it's about art and craft.
When Jeff Kaplan says "You," he's talking about the player who spends hours exploring a world, the developer who poured their heart into a tiny detail, the individual who finds connection in a shared experience.
He's talking about the *human* element. **That human element cannot be reduced to a conversion funnel.**
The Real Problem Nobody Talks About: The Commodification of Passion
The real problem isn't the data itself. Data is a tool. The problem is that we’ve allowed the data-driven mindset to commodify passion.
We've taken the intensely human act of creation — the spark of an idea, the joy of building, the desire to connect — and shoved it into a factory assembly line.
We've told artists, engineers, and storytellers to ignore their intuition and instead chase the phantom of the "user's" desires, as interpreted by a quarterly report.
This isn't just about gaming; it's about every industry. We've turned every human skill into a commodity.
We've convinced ourselves that the most valuable thing we can do is to be efficient cogs in a larger, optimized machine.
And when your passion becomes just another input, another resource to be extracted and optimized, it dies. It turns into resentment. It turns into burnout.
It turns into a constant feeling of 'never enough.' The industry has been so busy optimizing for the "user" that it forgot about the "you" — the individual, the creator, the passionate human being at both ends of the product.
What You Should Do Instead: Build For 'You'
It’s time to flip the script. Instead of chasing the ghost of the "user," start building for 'you' — the individual. Here are three things that actually work in 2026:
#### **H3: Build For Yourself (Or For a Specific 'You')**
Forget the mass market. Forget the lowest common denominator. What problem genuinely excites you?
What kind of experience would *you* love to create or consume? Build for that.
Or, if you're building for a market, build for a *specific* 'you' — a niche, a community, a person you can actually imagine using your product.
Not an avatar, not a demographic, but a real person with real needs and desires.
**Authenticity resonates in a way that generic optimization never will.** Small, passionate communities are infinitely more valuable than millions of disengaged "users."
#### **H3: Prioritize Craft Over Metrics**
Re-prioritize the craft. Focus on the quality, the artistry, the unique vision. If it's a game, make it fun.
If it's a tool, make it genuinely useful and delightful. Stop looking at the analytics dashboard every five minutes. Trust your intuition.
Trust your team's expertise. The metrics will follow if the underlying product is genuinely excellent and thoughtfully made.
**When you prioritize the craft, you invest in the soul of your product, not just its surface-level engagement.**
#### **H3: Embrace The Human Feedback Loop**
Stop relying solely on A/B tests for every decision. Engage in real conversations. Talk to your actual customers.
Run qualitative studies. Watch people use your product in person. Listen to their frustrations, their joys, their unexpected uses.
Jeff Kaplan's "You" video isn't just about empathy; it's about an intentional, direct connection.
It's about remembering that behind every data point is a person who has thoughts, feelings, and a unique perspective.
**This kind of human feedback is messy, but it’s invaluable.** It gives you insights that no spreadsheet ever will.
The Uncomfortable Truth
How many hours have you spent optimizing for an abstract "user" because someone on the internet told you to? When was the last time you asked yourself what *you* actually want to build?
What kind of experience *you* want to create?
The industry has been telling us to build for everyone, and in doing so, we've ended up building for no one. Jeff Kaplan’s message isn't just for players; it's for all of us.
It's a call to reclaim our humanity in a world obsessed with data.
Have you ever felt like you're building for a ghost, or is it just me? What's the one metric you wish we'd all just ignore? Let's talk in the comments.
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**Andrew** — Founder of Signal Reads. Builder, reader, occasional contrarian.
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