[ehnto]

I think the biggest factor is that the product of a company is rarely software, but the job it performs. If your software could be replaced by some humans then your company doesn't sell software at all, it sells a process fulfillment. In that case the quality of the software doesn't matter to anyone but the developers, and developers are a smart bunch and clue in to that fact, and they work to the requirements.

I have worked at companies that value quality over all else, as our position in the market was a premium, reliable provider and we charged enough to make the economies of that decision make sense. I was happy to be able to write software I could be really proud of while there and lucky to get paid to do it.

I've also worked at companies where the stakeholders make it clear that they want results, and they don't care how. In circumstances like that, where you have strong time pressure and limited resources, no one but you cares about the code quality. So do you spend your own time staying late and making perfect code, or do you do what you get paid for and exercise your passion somewhere else?

There is a lot of good coding that takes just as much time as writing bad code, so the second situation for good developers is mostly an exercise in pragmatism. Reliable, solid code, but some concessions where it saves time.

This is answering the question of where the sentiment comes from, which only partly answers the question of "Why is so much code bad".

[mobjack]

There is a difference between code quality and software quality. Users dont care about the code quality at all as long as it meets their needs and requirements.

You should strive for both but if you had to choose one, quality software written with bad code is more valuable than bad software written with good code.

While quality code adds value when it comes maintenance and scaling, it is often overvalued by developers who think it is the end goal in itself.