The Friction Opportunity

Once upon a time, a group of very rich men in hoodies decided that all friction was bad. Life, they told us, was just a UX problem – and the answer was always "seamless", "frictionless", "one-tap".

Frictionless dating! Tinder, Bumble, Hinge – all the fun, none of that awkward business of walking up to someone in a pub. Just sit on your sofa and swipe. Yet users are now leaving in their millions, complaining that – at best - none of it feels real.

Frictionless music! Scroll through Spotify's endless buffet, every song ever recorded in your pocket. Except you'll never own any of it, your favourite artists earn a billionth of a penny per play, and the songs themselves are increasingly empty AI slop.

Frictionless living! Groceries, taxis, and takeaways materialise at your door with a thumbprint and a shrug. But there’s no discovery, no "what would you like from the shop?", no stumbling across unexpected treasures. Just stuff appearing, while you stay exactly where you are.

Humanity has never had it so smooth – and we've never felt so frazzled, lonely, anxious and empty. We turned life into one long frictionless scroll - and stripped out the bits that made it feel meaningful.

In 2026, that's a huge opportunity for brands: not to add more slick convenience, but to bring back the right kind of friction.

Your funnel is too smooth

Marketers swallowed the tech gospel whole: friction kills conversion. Remove it at all costs. The logic is impeccable – less resistance equals more completion.

But humans don't run on logic alone, and brands definitely don't.

Think about the last few things you bought "frictionlessly". One-click orders that materialise 12 hours later. Subscriptions that renew invisibly in the background like digital mould.

Now: how many of those brands can you recall unprompted? How much loyalty do you feel beyond "it turned up and it wasn't terrible"? If someone else offered the same thing 50p cheaper or 30 seconds faster, would you hesitate for even a heartbeat?

When everything is easy, nothing feels special.

The tech bros optimised for speed and volume. They did not optimise for memory or meaning. That's our job. And we've been acting like a less well-paid extension of their product teams.

Bring back the faff

Here's the thing nobody in Silicon Valley wants to admit: the things we actually care about in life are rarely frictionless.

Think about classic British faff: the full Sunday roast with its peeling, oven-shelf juggling, and "have you done the gravy?" meltdowns. The pre-match rituals – same pub (regardless of how crap it is), same drink (even if you don’t really like it any more), same superstitious, overlong route to the stadium. And of course, the precise, slightly unhinged choreography of making a proper cup of tea, just how you like it.

None of that is "seamless CX". It's gloriously inefficient. And that's exactly why it sticks. Why people care.

In our "Ritualized" research – now into its third year of looking at 21st Century rituals across cultures and categories - one theme surfaced repeatedly: good friction. The steps, the rules, the slight inconvenience – that's what turns a moment from "just doing a thing" into "this actually means something".

Remove every bump and you don't just streamline behaviour – you flatten emotion.

Not all friction is good

This is not a manifesto for 45-minute call centre queues, eight-page forms or websites that crash if you look at them funny.

The opportunity for brands in 2026 is distinguishing stupid friction from meaningful friction:

Stupid friction is accidental, legacy, misaligned with any emotional value.

Meaningful friction is deliberate, and clearly connected to an outcome like identity, pride, anticipation or care.

One is a UX bug. The other is a brand asset.

2026: design the kink in the pipe

What does this mean for brands in Britain in 2026, staring into the over-optimised abyss?

Stop behaving like junior product managers for Silicon Valley. Start behaving like custodians of meaning again.

Questions to ask:

Where have we smoothed things so much that we've removed any sense of commitment or pride?

Where could we add back a tiny bit of effort – a choice, a step, a wait – that makes people feel they're joining, earning or doing something properly, not just tapping? Think opening the old KitKat wrapper, running your finger down the foil…

What part of our journey could become a repeatable ritual – "the way we do it with this brand"? Think Corona putting the lime wedge in the bottle…

Maybe it's a join process that feels more like initiation than admin. Maybe it's a deliberate pause that builds anticipation, not boredom. (Hello, Guinness.) Maybe it's guided faff – a setup ritual, a pre-drive check, a playlist – that says: this is worth doing well.

Because in a world the tech bros have ironed flat, adding some friction back in might be the most radical, subversive and effective move a brand can make.

Kit Altin is chief strategy officer at The Gate