In engineering design, feature creep happens when products get incrementally more complicated and they no longer perform their original functions very well.
We might see a product prototype and think, “hey there’s extra space here, and extra processing power we haven’t used” and add a feature that doesn’t augment the core functionality and most people won’t bother with.
We can avoid this with forced prioritisation and pursuing a simple idea. But also by building systems that are foundationally flexible while being simple.