[snowwrestler]

They didn’t resolve the issue.

There’s an important moment in the story, where they realize the fix will incur a one-time fee of $100,000. No one in engineering can sign off on that amount, and no one wants to try to explain it to non-technical execs.

They don’t explain why. But it’s probably because they expect a negative response like “how could you let this happen?!” or “I’m not going to pay that, find another way to fix it.”

In a lot of organizations it’s easier to live with a steadily growing recurring cost than a one-time fee… even if the total of the steady growth ends up much larger than the one-time fee!

It’s not necessarily pathological. Future costs will be paid from future revenue; whereas a big fee has to be paid from cash on-hand now.

But sometimes the calculation is not even attempted because of internal culture. When the decision is “keep your head down” instead of “what’s the best financial strategy,” that could hint at even bigger potential issues down the road.

[hogrider]

Sounds more like non technical leadership sleeping at the wheel. I mean if they could just afford to lose money like this why bother with all that work to fix it?