If you are paying for developers than no "empathy" is needed. Shitty industry software is due to the business clinging on to legacy systems and refusing to invest in new ones. And often they are right, using the legacy software has better business outcomes than spending the money required to make something better. We see that when the investment is made, we get great software. The camera software we have is remarkable compared to what we had 10 years ago.
> If you are paying for developers than no "empathy" is needed.
I don't agree. I think its impossible to make good software without deeply understanding the perspective and needs of your users. Money can be used to hire empathetic designers, but its hard to beat software designed and made and maintained by its users directly.
I worked with a designer years ago who organized a series of user study sessions with our prospective clients. She insisted on each engineer on the team going to at least one of those sessions with her. I thought it was a bit silly - but I went to a couple of meetings and I was shocked. It was hugely eye opening for me - I learned so much. It made our product better, too. Down the track I added some small features to our product that nobody asked for, but which were easy to implement and which our clients loved. It wouldn't have occurred to me to add any of that stuff if I didn't first sit in those meetings and hear things from their perspective.
> due to the business clinging on to legacy systems and refusing to invest in new ones
This is a massive generalisation and one that I don't think is as clear cut as you make it sound. Most businesses in my experience would happily replace a horrible hard-to-maintain legacy system if...
* It could be done for a reasonable cost
* It wouldn't take ages to do or at least they know how long
* They knew how to find the right product amongst thousands of sales people telling them to use theirs
* They could find a reliable way to migrate to the new system
* They weren't heavily regulated and knew they were on the hook for millions in compensation if they get something wrong
I think a bigger reason is that the software engineering industry is only just starting to form a formal trade where quality is assured by agreed processes and you are more likely to get consistency across suppliers closer to medicine and law. At the moment, there are no agreed worldwide regulations for software, there are no requirements for software engineers regarding experience/qualification and many other reasons.
If we can solve some of those, or at least get close, then we help derisk businesses who want to stay competitive but are currently too scared to!