Imagine this. You watch your kid grow from the day he's born to his first birthday. You think, Wow, if he keeps growing like this, he'll be 50 meters tall by the time he's 80! Your partner would probably call you stupid. Obviously, kids stop growing at some point—they hit their natural limits.

Now, think about services. We often aim for constant growth, year after year. But just like kids, services might have natural limits too. Pushing for endless scaling can be just as stupid as expecting your baby to grow forever.

Action question

What are the goals you have for your service? Which one should have a natural limit?

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.

• Written with AI help: This principle draft is based on an audio note I took while walking that was transcribed and cleaned using Audiopen. I then reviewed and improved the text by hand.