Software may be getting worse, but it used to be horrible
- ID
- 40303
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 27 Oct 2026, 7:30 PM
- Fetched
- 28 Oct 2026, 2:26 PM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://www.bitlog.com/2026/10/27/software-may-be-getting-worse-but-it-used-to-be-horrible/
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 7.0
- Created
- 28 Oct 2026, 2:27 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_coderssaas_founders
What happened
Jake Voytko argues in an October 27, 2026 bitlog.com essay that today's software may be degrading—if code production rises 10x without a matching error-rate drop, production apps get buggier—but the nostalgia that 'software used to be better' is wrong. He recalls Windows-era pain from 1990 onward: blue screens, fragile device drivers, and Windows at roughly 95% market share, when shipping on floppy/CD/ROM forced a hard quality floor. The Hacker News thread drew 312 points and 324 comments.
Why it matters
Use this as a calibration check: if your team is increasing code output, the article's 10x-production argument says bug volume rises unless defect rate falls by a similar factor. Don't benchmark against a nostalgic past; old software had physical distribution constraints that forced a quality floor, so decide which release gates you need to recreate deliberately.
Discussion angle
Ask each builder to name one quality floor their current release process lacks that floppy/CD/ROM distribution used to enforce—then pick one concrete gate to add this sprint.