Quality is a hard sell in big tech
Quality in large tech companies is seen as increasingly hard to justify when short-term growth, feature velocity, and lock-in matter more than long-term maintainability or user experience. Commenters tie this “enshittification” of software to misaligned incentives, weak competition, poor metrics for quality, and management practices that reward shipping quickly over building durable, well-tested systems. Some argue open source, stronger competition, or mission-driven cultures can counteract this trend, but note that high quality is expensive, hard to measure, and often only valued once its absence becomes catastrophic.
Nature of “Quality” and Simplicity
- Several argue quality code tends to be simple/uncomplicated, but note many domains have irreducible complexity.
- Distinction is drawn between “complex” (necessary) and “complicated” (cruft, layers, workarounds).
- Some see quality as modularity so juniors can reason about small parts; others say “quality” is subjective and hotly debated (APIs, architectures, languages, tests).
Incentives, Competition, and Enshittification
- Many tie declining quality to monopolies/lock‑in: once users are captured, ROI favors growth, ads, and “moats” over refinement.
- Others frame it as general capitalism/short‑termism: maximizing near‑term revenue beats long‑term product health in almost every industry.
- Counterpoint: poor quality existed in non‑capitalist systems too; users tolerate “good enough” cheap software.
- Some see open source as the long‑run answer: commoditize infrastructure; big money sits in network‑effect monopolies.
Testing, QA, and Engineering Practice
- Multiple comments lament elimination or weakening of QA; devs “supposed” to test but generally don’t, and aren’t incentivized.
- Quality efforts often come bottom‑up from caring engineers; top‑down pushes only work when leadership explicitly prioritizes them and accepts schedule hit.
- Testability and refactoring are seen as costly upfront but cheaper than tech‑debt catastrophes and rewrites.
Management, Product, and Org Dynamics
- Product managers are criticized for lacking technical depth and disguising technical decisions as requirements.
- Feature churn and “rebranding” for press attention are blamed for making mature products worse.
- Performance systems (short review cycles, stack ranking, KPI obsession) reward visible features over invisible quality or prevention work.
- Resume‑driven development and short tenures disincentivize long‑term care.
Measuring and Paying for Quality
- Quality is hard to sell because it’s hard to measure; benefits show up as avoided future costs and reduced churn.
- People invoke “technical debt” as a communicable metaphor; propose similar “product debt.”
- Some argue “quality is expensive,” others that lack of quality is more expensive over time; optimal point is “good enough,” not perfection.
Debate Over the Word “Enshittification”
- One subthread debates the term itself: some find it vivid and accurate; others see it as cringe, unserious, or vulgar for mainstream/academic use.
- Alternatives proposed include “platform decay,” “management decay,” “rent seeking,” and “platform arson,” with disagreement over whether they capture intentionality and emotional force.