[zokier]

Sure, supply chains exist everywhere (and managing them is a field of its own..), but usually they are more explicit at least on each "link" of the chain. Can you imagine producing pencil in full anarchy where people just do random stuff and somehow you have to fish out the things you need and hope they keep the flows going without any explicit agreements or contracts? Where you get wood from logger because he happens to like logging that much, or he had some leftovers after doing a gig for someone else? That imaginary world resembles more the current state of software.