Disclaimer: we are in no way intimating or outright suggesting that you become purveyors of drugs, legal or otherwise.

We’ve long known that tech can be addictive. When was the last time you left home without your cellphone? Or voluntarily spent a day or more without checking email et al?

One of our readers contacted us recently, wondering why the functionality of a certain platform he uses regularly had just removed functionality that has been a necessity for him. It’s a networking platform (not LinkedIn) and he can no longer get in touch with people whom he’d met through the platform previously.

Doesn’t seem like a very prudent move for a networking platform, especially considering that any good networker worth his/her salt knows the importance of following up/staying in touch. How does that very basic rule of networking escape the founder of a networking platform?

LinkedIn has done this over time: gotten us accustomed to certain features – then added said features to their set of premium features, so you’d have to increase your monthly spend – or upgrade from the freemium model – in order to continue to access them.

We suggested that the platform he had mentioned is in search of a revenue model, and that the feature to which he was referring might be part of that offering in the very near future.

That’s a standard drug dealer move: give the product away for free, and once the person is hooked, in that case perhaps literally, charge.

And well we know that tech never shrinks from addicting users to certain features. Then has a habit of sometimes moving the cheese. Take note, founders.

Now, there are times when platforms dispense with certain features for whatever reason – executive decision, ‘upgrade,’ not enough seeming interest in said feature, who can say for sure – and always a good idea to be careful there. If you have dedicated users driven to your technology in no small part due to that feature, may not be such a great idea to dispense with it. For all you know, one of them may be an enterprising founder or coder who decides to replicate your product, with said feature back intact.

A good general rule for tech at large might be first, to do no harm, and if only, what, eh? It’s actually part of the Hippocratic Oath which was once a requirement for all newly minted doctors to swear by, but that’s not necessarily the case anymore.  Still a good general rule, and if anyone tries to convince you otherwise, which seems to be something of the way in tech, at least in some quarters, Just Say No.  Onward and forward.