Why You Shouldn't Just Copy Amazon

During WWII, statistician Abraham Wald was asked to review bombers returning from missions. The military wanted to reinforce the areas of the planes that had taken the most bullet holes. But Wald countered: " No, reinforce the areas where there are no bullet holes. Because the planes that got hit there never made it back. "

This is a textbook example of Survivorship Bias—focusing only on the visible successes and completely ignoring the failures we can't see.

This trap is everywhere in design.