There is a difference between minimalism and utilitarianism.
The difference is between removing everything that is unnecessary and stoping before you have removed too much.
That one proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back – or the one removed detail that turned elegance into homogenous banality. The distinction between functional form and the function without form that defines efficient modern managed “living” defined by accountants and bureaucrats.
The hard part is knowing what that point is. It is usually a part that cannot be defined, a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
A little unnecessary is absolutely necessary.
(Wo)man can live on protein shakes and pills alone but we sure don’t want to.
Give us bread, but also let us eat cake.
It is the unnecessary, irrational and undefinable that makes life worth living (and what makes businesses and economies profitable, incidentally – the margin is in the unflattenable, uncountable mess).