Sounds reasonable, but IME apps that use relative timestamps switch to absolute time past certain threshold, and then I end up with two adjacent entries "14:38” and "15 minutes ago" and scratching my head.

Signal does that and I hate it when it happens.

There are other minor problems as well:

- Screenshots don't age well: you need to know the screenshot time and do math

- They need to be maintained, which means the screen keeps updating even if nothing else is happening

Claude Code: "Heads up. At this pace you’ll run out Sunday night, before the Oct 14 reset."

It is silly to mix the two. I usually display the relative time and offer a timestamp on hover or if there's space, show both.