features or characteristics that add unnecessary expense to a product or service, generally added due to unchecked enthusiasm or the desire to show off capabilities which, although possibly worthy on their own, have little relevance to the offering at hand; similar in concept to gild the lily, which refers to covering an already beautiful object in gold; implies that the one doing the plating does not appreciate the essential qualities of a product or has an inadequate understanding of the customer, and is instead throwing everything haphazardly into the solution1
- This may be less of an issue today given the rise of “minimum viable product” as an idea, which leaves little room for superfluities. ↩