Everything’s a vibe, the true cost of luxury, new privacy laws, strategic type

Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

3 min readApr 28, 2025

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“What started as casual slang is now everywhere — from how we code and market to how we pitch, design, and even write job descriptions. We’re witnessing a vibe-driven culture that replaces fact with feeling. And that raises a profound question: If everything’s a vibe now, are we building towards progress or just floating on emotional autopilot?”

Everything’s a vibe: is it progress or just an illusion? →
By

Ian Batterbee

Editor picks

When users change their behavior to game the algorithm →
How our awareness is breaking social media feeds.
By
Simon Mauro Guido
The Roblox’s creator illusion →
How a platform claiming to empower kids actually extracts billions from them.
By
Sam Liberty
Are Chinese factories quietly destroying the luxury brand image? →
Revealing the true cost of luxury.
By
Elvis Hsiao

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Japanese gradients for UI: an R&D project series →

Make me think

Impact, agency, and taste →
“Without taste, you’re likely to work toward the wrong thing. Without agency, even if you work toward the right thing, you’re likely to get nowhere.”
The software engineering identity crisis →
“AI coding assistants aren’t just changing how we write software — they’re fundamentally transforming who we are. We’re shifting from creators to orchestrators, from builders to overseers. From engineers to something that looks suspiciously like… managers.”
Building products that stick →
“The [current] focus is on delivering as many features and functionalities as possible to satisfy the needs and desires of competing internal departments, rather than providing a clear value proposition that is focused on what the people out there in the real world want.”