Thank you Denzel for this real life example.

Your example is exactly how good defaults work. They remove the inertia that often prevents people from making beneficial financial decisions.

When designing financial platforms, the distinction between helpful friction and harmful friction becomes very important.

Helpful friction is a small pause that encourages better decision-making. For example, before an investor withdraws from a long-term investment, an app might display a prompt such as:
“This withdrawal may affect your long-term financial goals. Would you like to review your projected retirement balance before proceeding?”
That brief moment of reflection can prevent emotionally driven decisions.

Harmful friction, on the other hand, is unnecessary complexity that discourages good behavior. For example, requiring multiple forms, lengthy verification steps, or complex navigation just to start investing can discourage people from participating in the first place.

The goal of well-designed financial systems is simple is to make good decisions easy and bad decisions slightly harder.