[hinkley]

Those two aren't mutually exclusive.

If you don't know how to put in the hard work to get something like you want 'the right way' and someone keeps advertising that they have 'another right way' that can do all the same things, you can take the low road and by the time you see the trap you've walked into it's difficult to go back, or for some people even admit that mistakes were made.

There are all of these time horizons in Software Engineering where you externalize the costs of things to your successors. Several classes of bad decisions start to fall apart at 18 months, and unless those started at the same time you did, you might be able to grin and bear it until it's time for a new job anyway. I think there are classes of process or architecture missteps that might go 3 years (less confident of that time interval) before it comes off the rails, and for a lot of startups that could be the proximal reason you flame out, even though it's the symptoms that are more visible.