Take browsers. Chrome is used by three billion people. Yet you wouldn’t know that a human actually put time and effort into it from the generic design and merely functional layout. Now take Arc: it still has tabs and windows just like Chrome, but it’s different. Arc brings a magical feel to the user, like it was made by people who care — the music notes when you play Spotify, the bouncy download icon when you save a file. These features don’t need to exist. Arc could’ve been just as corporate as Chrome and Safari, without the little touches — but The Browser Company chose not to be just like Google and Apple.

Take mechanical keyboards. Most mechanical keyboard¹ users use Keychron. Yet Keychron keyboards are like Chrome — good for a beginner, leaving something to be desired for an experienced user (build quality, uniqueness). Now take a Norbauer Seneca, or a Mode Encore: Ryan Norbauer spent years fixing the space bar — one key out of a hundred. Every tiny piece of the Seneca is agonized over, from the material choice to the innovative retro-profile MTNU keycaps. In the Mode Encore, every detail of the cherry lip, the chamfered edge on the front of the keyboard, is thoroughly thought about and looked at.

Take fonts. 50 million websites use the Google Fonts API. Yet Google Fonts, for the most part, aren’t going to be as pretty, as thoughtful, as paid fonts (money is a good incentive!). Now take Old City Mailroom: same letters as Google Fonts, but handcrafted and perfected to an insane level, producing some of the most original and unique fonts I’ve ever seen.

We need more of those niche products. Right now, all AI chatbots look the same — they all have a chance to stand out, but they deny it. They could include novel user input methods, a slightly different layout from the all-too-common sidebar and chat box. They could even use Old City Mailroom fonts! Products that try to stand out might not have billions of users like Chrome, but a few thousand dedicated users easily trump billions of forced ones.

Companies can stand out in many ways: original design, quirky copy, efforts to build a community. When you try to stand out — really stand out — that’s when you get the dedicated user base. The Norbauer Seneca’s not going to be for everyone. But enough people will deeply love it.

I love trying to find niche products — searching for that sense of satisfaction when you stumble upon something that will really make a difference in your life. Currently I’m enjoying Mood Camera, a replacement for the stock camera app which comes with tons of film emulations and presets. if you’re looking for the same kinds of products, whether it’s hardware or software, I’d suggest looking at Oliur’s Link Lowdown, a collection of links to things that are niche and useful.

Companies that create niche products change the industry around them. When products all start to look the same, it signals functionality over experience. I’d make the case that people should switch to personality-filled tools: from Chrome to Arc, from the default to Mood Camera, from Google Fonts to Old City Mailroom (not saying you should necessarily buy a Seneca). Niche tools are created by people, and when you buy them, you fund people. Mainstream tools are created by large companies, and when you buy them, you fund companies, not people.

If you’re interested in reading more about niche products, I’d recommend the fascinating Niche Design Zine, by Itay Dreyfus, with whom I collaborated earlier this year. It’s filled with interviews and Q&As with designers and developers of niche products and personal essays about the world of niche design.

I’d also love recommendations for niche products I’ve never tried — send me an email if you know of any!