[travisgriggs]

Where this fails for me is that the 2x4 is a standard. And it's simple. And it's universally acceptable. I can send my wife and my kids alike to buy one from who knows where with little to zero instruction. They can work with it with ease. The "ecosystem" fades into the background. But modern software ecosystems are the exact opposite. You spend more time trying to learn/master/navigate the ecosystem than you do working with the metaphorical 2x4. To make matters worse, getting a 2x4 has been temporally stable for a long time. Not much has changed since my grandfather could send me to the store to buy a 2x4 on my own. But software ecosystems evolve and migrate weekly. Your argument demonstrates that all developed fields create ecosystems. But it does not address the issue that not all ecosystems are equal. Some are good. Some are bad. It's my opinion that modern software ecosystems look more like the British Civil Service than the ecosystem that produces 2x4s.