Systems built for modularity can evolve without breaking. Components can be replaced, recombined, or extended when they’re designed to be independent. A tightly coupled system, where touching one thing breaks another, makes change expensive and risky in ways that weren’t visible when the system was built. [[Zettelkasten as a modular architecture]] applies this same principle to knowledge: each note is independent enough to be linked in unexpected ways, and that independence is what makes the connections generative.
[[Premature scaling can stunt system iteration]] is the failure mode on the other side: optimising a coupled system before you understand it locks in decisions that should still be flexible. The Lego metaphor captures both the constraint and the freedom. Each piece has a defined interface, and that constraint is exactly what makes the combinations possible.