[Yhippa]

> but I'm guessing some PMs needed to make their mark, so they "improved" things by breaking them

I loathe this so much and you know this is _exactly_ what happened. This is a problem at a lot of big companies. At the end of the year you don't get reviewed on "improving existing customer experience" you get more money based on how many features you put into production.

[Balgair]

See Excel, Google Maps, Chrome, etc. Really anything by Google starts out amazing, and then ends up as either total crap or relegated into a black hole. MSFT has gotten a lot better, relative to before, but is still terrible in absolute numbers. I know why this is, managers gotta manage, mortgages gotta get paid, etc. but the real question is why do companies get into these traps, even though it happens so damn often? The only thing I have is the Gervais Principle, but even that is too simple an explanation.