In 2006, designer Aza Raskin developed the interaction widely associated with his name: infinite scroll. Instead of reaching the end of a page and clicking Next, you keep moving and more content arrives. A small inconvenience disappears. So does a convenient moment to leave.
Raskin has since spoken publicly about his regret. You may well be reading this after scrolling past three things you have already forgotten. The contrast rather sells itself.
Why Removing One Button Matters
Traditional pagination creates a small decision point. Clicking Next is not a heroic act of self-control, but it asks you to do something before continuing. Automatic loading can let that decision fade into the movement of your thumb.
In a March 28, 2026 NPR interview, Raskin described the removal of that stopping cue and said that understanding the mechanism did not make him immune to its effects. He also emphasized the difference between a designer’s helpful intentions and the incentives of the systems that adopt the design.
That is a stronger point than declaring every scroll an act of mind control. The feature does not force everyone to behave identically. It changes the effort required to continue, and in a feed full of recommendations that change can matter.
Raskin wanted smoother flow. The internet supplied the Yangtze River version: a stream that seems quite prepared to continue long after you have forgotten why you opened the app.
The Regret Does Not Unship the Feature
Raskin co-founded the Center for Humane Technology, which argues for technology that better respects people and their attention. His criticism is useful because it comes from someone involved in building interfaces, not because one inventor can recall a pattern from every website that uses it.
You cannot un-invent something by feeling bad about it, however publicly. Nor can one person be made responsible for every recommendation system, notification, business decision, or implementation that later surrounds it.
My concern is the combination. A continuously replenished feed, personalized suggestions, and a business that benefits from keeping you there can all pull in the same direction. The smooth interface is only one piece of that arrangement.
A Useful Design Can Have a Cost
Pagination really can be annoying. If you are browsing a collection of images or exploring a large set of results, loading more without a full page transition may be exactly what you want. Convenience is not a trick just because it is convenient.
The harder question is whether the interface helps you complete your purpose or makes it easier to drift away from it. Searching for one item and browsing for entertainment are different tasks. A design that works nicely for one may be frustrating for the other.
This is the awkward part of downstream effects. Having to click a button is a visible usability complaint. Spending longer than intended and leaving vaguely dissatisfied is harder to isolate. It can involve the content, your circumstances, and the surrounding design rather than one component alone.
We have a related tension in the promise of more authentic social media: changing the presentation can help, but it does not automatically change every pressure around using the service.
Putting a Stopping Point Back
If a particular feed regularly eats time you meant to spend elsewhere, try a small change you can evaluate. Set a reminder before opening it, move the app off your home screen, or keep the phone elsewhere while doing a task that needs attention. Treat these as experiments, not proof of moral strength.
A reader or app that shows a finite list can also help you see what remains. RSS is one route to choosing sources more deliberately, although RSS software can itself use endless scrolling. The important feature is a useful boundary, not the acronym.
On the design side, an explicit Load More button, an end-of-new-items marker, or a limit chosen by the user can create a pause. None is a universal solution. A dismissible reminder can become background noise; a hard interruption can be irritating. The point is to give people a meaningful choice about continuing.
The Pudgy Cat Take
Infinite scroll is not uniquely evil. It is a very efficient way to remove one kind of friction. Whether that serves you depends on what it is attached to and what the people running it are trying to achieve.
Blaming the tool alone is like blaming the spoon for the sugar. Ignoring the tool entirely is not much better when somebody has designed the spoon to refill itself.
Raskin’s regret does not settle the question, but it makes a useful invitation: look at the ordinary choices an interface makes on your behalf. Does it help you find what you came for? Does it let you notice when you are finished?
This article, at least, has reached its bottom. An underrated feature.
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