The first real decision in mechanical keyboards is switch type, usually framed as a feel choice: do you want smooth (linear), bumpy (tactile), or bumpy-and-loud (clicky)? Beginners treat this as a high-stakes commitment to a feeling and agonise over it. The feel matters, but the framing buries the consequence that actually causes regret — switch type is at least as much a decision about sound, and therefore about the people around you, as it is about how the keys feel.
The two axes you're really choosing on
Feel is one axis: linear switches glide with no bump, tactile switches give a noticeable bump as they actuate, clicky switches add a sharp click on top. That is the part everyone discusses. The second axis — loudness — gets far less attention and causes far more real-world grief. Clicky switches are loud, deliberately so. In a shared office, a household, or on a video call, that loudness is not your decision alone; it is imposed on everyone within earshot, and it is the thing most likely to make you, or someone near you, regret the choice.
How to actually decide
Start with your environment's noise budget. If you share space, rule out clicky and lean toward quieter linears or tactiles, perhaps with sound-dampening. If you are alone and answer to no one's ears, the whole range is open and you can choose purely on feel. Then, within that, try the feels — a switch tester is cheap — and pick what you enjoy under your fingers. The order matters: constraint first, preference second.
The takeaway
Switch type is sold as a feel choice, but the feel options are mostly all pleasant and the sound options are not all socially survivable. Decide the loudness you can get away with first, then pick the feel you love inside that limit. Get that order right and you avoid the most common switch regret: a keyboard you love that everyone around you quietly hates.