This author trieds hard to do a pragmatic view. He does not mention ethical or ecological concerns (which should matter far more and subject to legal regulation IMO).

Instead, he focuses on the quality topic. His thinking is that companies are doing now a kind of quality arbitrage: Companies can make low-quality code at far cheaper costs, and sellthe result still at human-made prices. Which will only work for so long, he thinks: Customers will demand lower prices. (Easy to imagine a quality downward spiral.)

Which invokes the question: What has happened that people accept lower and lower quality? Is new software nowadays still really useful?

  • Snarwin@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    What has happened that people accept lower and lower quality?

    Same thing that’s driven quality off a cliff in every other product category: enshittification. When you can buy up your competitors, sue anyone who tries to improve or repair your product, and replace any employees who try to stick up for quality with cheap offshore labor and/or AI, there’s nothing to stop you from making your product shittier and shittier.