All products have a reciprocal relationship between the desire of the creators to exert control and the leverage the product gains as it becomes succesful. These two factors are inversely proportional to each other. As leverage increases control decreases.

This is a pretty easy concept for Designers to understand. When you start designing something you have absolute control over it. Since it has no users you can literally wake up every day and redesign everything without any real implications. Once a product is in market it begins to gain leverage. This is great since this means the product is being used.

Every user, every increase in engagement, is an increase in leverage. But this increase in leverage diminishes how much control you can exert on the product. You can't just wake up and decide to redesign everything without impacting users in some way.

On products at scale, dramatic changes result in a change in usage as people adjust to the new design/features etc . Sometimes these dips are temporary and metrics turn positive over time, other times they don't. Regardless, your control over the product is now influenced by the leverage the product has.

On the positive side, if your product has leverage, small changes have big impact. Something as simple as increasing content density or optimizing graphics can mean large revenue gains and meaningful cost reductions.

Recognizing the relationship between control and leverage will make it easier to talk about proposed changes. If you are a new designer on a highly leveraged product, proposing a host of dramatic changes will not be received well unless you understand how much control you can reasonably exert.