Thousands of cabins, one search box.

The first version of Hinterland's search had 47 filters. We had filters for hot tub, sauna, fire pit, BBQ, parking, electricity, water, dog-friendly, child-friendly, wheelchair access, dishwasher (yes, in a cabin), pet deposit tier, and twelve flavors of view. We cut it to nine.

Here's what we learned. Most filter usage is signal noise — people clicking checkboxes to feel productive in a search session. The filters that actually correlate with bookings are: dates, party size, dogs, water access, off-grid, and price. That's it. The other forty are decorations.

We didn't delete them — they're metadata on the listing page, where they belong. They just don't drive search. Our hypothesis was that fewer levers means better matches, and the booking conversion went up nine points the week we shipped it.

The lesson is older than the marketplace: every filter is a tax on the user's attention. Only charge that tax when the answer changes the result.