Andy here! Thank you for reading my article. We had a lot of fun creating this checkbox. Was it necessary? Of course not. We wanted to push the idea of "feel" in product interactions. For some, it's too far. Others not far enough.

Regardless, I love reading all of the comments here because it does what we aim to do which is to bring ideas like "feel" to the forefront and talk more critically about the apps, services, and ui patterns that shape our daily experiences.

We tend to fall into thinking about software in purely functional terms—speed and power—with metrics we can optimize. Yet software is also very personal. It shapes our daily experience as much or more than many of the physical products we use or the spaces we occupy. Great Design (of any kind) reaches beyond meeting functional needs and satisfies deeper needs that enrich our daily lives. If we can appreciate the bevel on a phone or the satisfying feel of a car accelerator, we ought to expect more the software we spend hours in every day.