"Why We Can't Have Nice Software"

As a young pup in my early twenties, I once held a naively hopeful perspective on those massive entities we call corporations. I foolishly believed that Big-Tech companies actually possessed good intentions. Why would anyone with a choice between a morally satisfying choice and mere pittance of extra profit, go for the latter? Why bear such a guilt for slightly higher profit? So what if Google and Microsoft produced buggy or sub-par products? They probably have bad engineers, and slightly unsavory intentions.

Many years later, and after observing countless fuck ups by corporations, I no longer feel as optimistic about the amount of fault that lies in their intentions as I see perfectly competent software engineers who work in these companies. The hierarchy of these companies incentivizes middle and top-level management to pressure for more and more of these slightly-higher profits. Although the profit may seem proportionally small, it has significant implications for every managerial employee’s career.

Emphasizing the adverse effects of such forces on consumers, Andrew Kelley published an affectionate essay on his blog, called Why We Can’t Have Nice Software, which I highly recommend reading.