A real opportunity for startups is to produce services that save us all from gratuitous branding that pollutes every part of the user experience, directly hindering usability. I would pay extra for services that can be described simply by what they do and not who they are.

Examples of crazy UI ruined by overzealous branding:

With voice interfaces, why must I issue wordy commands like “hey <Device>, ask the <Company Name> <Unnecessary Branding Words> to <finally! perform task>” instead of just saying “<perform task>”?

On Windows, why must I open the Start menu and launch the “<Your Company Name> <App>” instead of just “<App>”? On the Mac, why must half my menu bar be filled with “<Your Company Name> <Unnecessary Branding> <App>” instead of just “<App>”?

Why must your icon be 90% your company (describing nothing useful), with a miniature version of what your app actually DOES? That just makes toolbars, menus, short-cut bars and similar interfaces far less useful than they ought to be.

And oh, the keyboard. Why must search autocomplete be ruined because 6 different installations are named after your company FIRST (most searches try to prefix match), requiring me to type out your whole company’s name before I can even describe the applications uniquely?

When I see an alert message, why must I hear why “<Product Name> <Unnecessary Branding Words> cannot do X” instead of getting to the point with “X cannot be done”?

I just want to install and use things that stay out of the way. The time for the commercial was when I bought your app. Now that I own it, your software should be completely out of the way and focus on the task at hand.

If the old, established companies aren’t brave enough to hide their branding, maybe startups will be?