The Engagement Wall

Andrew Chen names a line that runs through every product: the engagement wall, the point where the product asks the user to deeply invest before they get the value. In front of the wall are low-effort actions that pay off immediately — browsing a feed, rating photos, clicking a link. Behind it are the high-effort, low-percentage actions: posting a photo, creating a project, dropping files into a folder.

The feature can only be experienced once a user buys in and engages. So if you "build a bunch of amazing features that are behind the engagement wall, then chances are, only a small % of users will experience the benefits." Stacking more features back there won't bend the curve — almost no one is standing there to see them.