Kay’s remark points to a common problem in technology and design: an idea that works well in a small setting may not remain effective when applied on a much larger scale. Growth can introduce new constraints, dependencies and forms of complexity that were absent in the original version.

The quotation therefore warns against assuming that the qualities which make an idea attractive will automatically survive expansion. A design may need to change substantially as the number of users, machines or interactions increases, and those changes can weaken some of its original strengths. The broader lesson is that scalability is not simply a matter of making something bigger. It requires attention to structure, limits and trade-offs, and sometimes means accepting that a good solution for one scale may be unsuitable for another.