A hardware limit would be more funny even

A loud audible ratchet mechanism. Just to add to the annoyance.

A ratchet that physically prevents reversing, but still have the firmware support reverse scrolling. I love the idea of a digital product that if broken in just the right way behaves as expected given intuition from the physical world.

Oh God that's delicious. I just love the idea of physical limitations to software options. So often it's the other way around. I can physically see the path or even map a solution but the software doesn't help.

This is the opposite of that.

I love that entirely.

There’s a lot to do with the general idea. I’ve enjoyed thinking about a garage door opener that uses 4G to open your garage door from anywhere in the world. Technically correct but worse than before!

The best thing about such a rachet would be that it could still allow a tiny amount of scrolling. Just enough for the user to know that it could scroll up... if the lock didn't kick in

Or if it had a mood sensor, and scrolled >>rapidly<< downwards if distress detected, with the logic that the user would never be satisfied with the amount of dopamine generated from any amount of doomscrolling performed.

What if both directions go downwards? That’s even more surprising to the first time user. That moment of confusion.