# Reality Dictionary
A translation guide from marketing language to reality.
PRO
Definition:
Nothing fundamentally new. Minor changes packaged so you feel justified paying more.
Reality:
Same product. Slightly nicer defaults.
Your workflow doesn’t change. Your bill does.
MAX
Definition:
Nothing new. Extremely expensive. Designed to make you feel rich.
Reality:
You paid for status.
Performance, reliability, and outcomes remain unchanged.
ENTERPRISE
Definition:
The same product, now with contracts, meetings, and a sales rep.
Reality:
You’re paying to outsource responsibility and sleep better.
The system itself did not improve.
AI-POWERED
Definition:
A thin wrapper around a model call.
Reality:
Latency increased.
Accuracy unchanged.
Marketing improved.
NEXT-GEN
Definition:
Current generation with a new name.
Reality:
Version bump.
Same constraints.
Same bottlenecks.
TURBO
Definition:
Promised speed improvements.
Reality:
No measurable speedup.
A safety check was removed, or a timeout was changed.
SMART
Definition:
Heuristic-based behavior with confidence.
Reality:
When it fails, no one knows why.
When it works, no one knows how.
OPTIMIZED
Definition:
One benchmark improved.
Reality:
The rest of the system stayed the same, or got worse.
SEAMLESS
Definition:
All complexity is hidden.
Reality:
You’ll discover it during an incident.
SCALABLE
Definition:
Works under ideal conditions.
Reality:
Costs grow faster than traffic.
CLOUD-NATIVE
Definition:
Built on managed services.
Reality:
You traded control for convenience.
Physics still applies.
LIGHTWEIGHT
Definition:
Smaller and simpler.
Reality:
Features were removed.
You’ll add them back later.
FLEXIBLE
Definition:
Highly configurable.
Reality:
Undefined behavior.
You are the test suite.
EASY TO USE
Definition:
Beginner-friendly interface.
Reality:
Hard to misuse — until you need to do something real.
PRODUCTION-READY
Definition:
Advertised as safe for real workloads.
Reality:
Someone else is already running it.
You’re about to learn why they regret it.
FREE
Definition:
No upfront cost.
Reality:
You’ll pay in time, risk, or loss of control.
OPEN-SOURCE
Definition:
Source code is available.
Reality:
Maintenance is your problem now.
STABLE
Definition:
No recent breaking changes.
Reality:
The bugs are just well-known.