Re:The shittiest project I ever worked on (2013)
by CM30 on Friday May 24, 2019 @11:40AM
(#20002679)
It's a mix of things to be honest. For instance, you're right, for many non tech centred companies the software stuff isn't all that important.
Hell, in many situations in general it isn't that important, since knowing the right problem to solve and who to market the solution to often matters a lot more than the technical quality of the solution in question. People and companies generally don't judge products and services by code quality or development practices, and unless these cause it to constantly break, don't really care about them at all.
But other factors do matter here. If a company is a known brand, then they can keep getting customers for terrible products for a long, long time, simply because they're the first name people go to. At some point you become so big, you get so much momentum, that you can basically publish/release anything and people will buy it. Apple could sell the most broken phones on the planet, and have 10 million + people rush out and buy every one.
Do companies get away with it forever? No, but the bigger you are, the longer it takes for you to fail after your products/services become crappy.
And yeah, as you say, local optimums matter too. If most companies in your field are inefficient and put out terrible products, then there's not much pressure for you to be much better.
Hell, in many situations in general it isn't that important, since knowing the right problem to solve and who to market the solution to often matters a lot more than the technical quality of the solution in question. People and companies generally don't judge products and services by code quality or development practices, and unless these cause it to constantly break, don't really care about them at all.
But other factors do matter here. If a company is a known brand, then they can keep getting customers for terrible products for a long, long time, simply because they're the first name people go to. At some point you become so big, you get so much momentum, that you can basically publish/release anything and people will buy it. Apple could sell the most broken phones on the planet, and have 10 million + people rush out and buy every one.
Do companies get away with it forever? No, but the bigger you are, the longer it takes for you to fail after your products/services become crappy.
And yeah, as you say, local optimums matter too. If most companies in your field are inefficient and put out terrible products, then there's not much pressure for you to be much better.