[arexxbifs]

> In the example of your Amiga, your hard drive failed

The crucial part here is that software caused the hard drive to fail. That was my point - I think it's easy to forget how fragile most home computer OS:es were 25-30 years ago compared to today.

[ziaddotcom]

Bad software and bad UI corrupts usb drives all day long in 2021.

[arexxbifs]

Yes, bad things can still happen. What I'm trying to say is bad things used to happen, too, quite frequently and on very simple systems, and that his points about gradually diminishing robustness and productivity are easy to refute. I'm of the opinion that computers today - despite layers of abstraction and growing complexity - are more robust and lets us be more productive than ever.

Abstraction fosters ignorance and complexity is fragile, I agree with him on those points. But I also think he makes very sweeping, erroneous statements about software and development.