[mynegation]

After 20+ years in the field: main reason is unclear requirements. Software malleability is taken for granted so much that the under specification and fluidity of requirements became a norm and canonicalized in “agile”. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it does allow for quick advancement of what is possible but high failure rate is the price we pay. Second: unlike traditional engineering, there are not too many university or college programs that take rigorous approach to building software at scale. Till today, software is a free-for-all industry. That allowed us to grow very fast, but - again - high failure rate is the price we pay. Third - lack of formal standards and by that I mean not just APIs or protocol specs but formal requirements on things like performance, fault-tolerance, lifespan etc.

[amelius]

Also, bugs in software are seen as a fact of life. You can't get warranty on software (at least this holds in practice for most consumers). If MacOS deletes all your files, good luck proving that it wasn't your fault, and good luck suing Apple.

So this gives programmers a carte blanche to create crap, effectively.

[gonzo41]

Auto companies do big recalls as well. They just have to pay more to fix a bug so there's more effort in front loading QA

[mistermann]

Democracy seems highly similar in this regard.