[ryandrake]

Even products that don't have a mandate to become attention-sucking get ruined eventually. Developers gotta develop---so once the product is pretty much done, it becomes a feature-cram-fest to try to bolt-on every crazy thing they can think of, including the kitchen sink. Meanwhile, long-standing bugs go unaddressed, security issues crop up, quality drops, and long-time users feel more and more alienated. I've seen this pattern repeat at pretty much every commercial application job I've ever had. Nobody has any concept of a product being finished. Nobody knows what maintenance mode is. It's just "Keep developing!" forever until the product doesn't even do its core function anymore.

[hotpotamus]

I once heard it said that developers are like beavers - they just instinctively keep cutting down trees and building dams. Seems accurate based on my experience.

[throw_nbvc1234]

yeah you don't just fire the PM's, gotta fire most of the devs as well; promotion driven development is the underlying theme. Just keep a group around for ops, scaling, and bug fixes. Maybe this kind of role is a 3 or 4 day a week job and becomes acceptable in a world that aligns with OP's vision.

[djbusby]

I make a small LOB type software, user request driven feature development still happens. There is a balance, fixing bugs and actual features in one zone and top-down attention drivers in another zone