The tech industry has spent a decade perfecting selfie filters and apps that tell you what color your aura is today. Meanwhile, tools for efficient data management, industrial automation, or cybersecurity advance at a snail's pace. We have prioritized empty entertainment over real functionality, and the consumer market has led us down that path.
The cost of ignoring basic digital infrastructure 💻
Developing robust software requires time, testing, and a solid architecture. However, investors prefer apps with fast return cycles based on advertising and microtransactions. This has created an ecosystem where a programmer who knows how to optimize databases earns less than someone who designs a virtual pet game. Technical debt accumulates while no one funds critical patches for the open source libraries that sustain the internet.
The drama of having 50 apps to organize cat photos 🐱
Now it turns out you need an app to meditate, another to remind you to breathe, and a third to organize screenshots of your fridge. If you add up the hours spent managing these tools, you could have learned to program your own task manager. But no, we prefer to pay monthly subscriptions so an AI can tell us that we must drink water. What times we live in.