I kept installing Claude Code skills because it's one command and it's free. Every time I saw a skill that looked useful, I added it. No cost, no friction, so why not. After 30 days I parsed my own session logs, just out of curiosity. I had 116 skills installed. I had actually used 35. I never noticed the other 81.
The problem
Skill marketplaces grow fast and installing is easy. One command, no review, nothing to pay. So people keep installing and nobody checks later which skills they actually use. Nothing forces you to check.
This is not free. Every installed skill loads its metadata into the prompt at the start of every session. So dead skills cost tokens for nothing, every session. With a normal dependency you eventually hit a version conflict or a security warning and you have to look at it. An installed skill never makes you look. It just sits in the prompt until you go and count.
How I measured it
