[chii]

While good, those ideas will all increase costs.

Would you pay 10x (or more, even) for these systems? That means 10x the price of water, utilities, transport etc, which then accumulate up the chain to make other things which don't have criticality but do depend on the ones that do.

The thing is, what exists today exists because it's the path of least resistence.

[Vegenoid]

Consumer costs would not go up 10x to put more care into ensuring the continuous operation of critical IT infrastructure. Things like "an update to the software or configuration of critical systems must first be performed on a test system".

[tempodox]

Cars without seat belts were the path of least resistance for a long time. I wonder how that changed.

[duckmysick]

You're right (not sure about the exact factor though) - and there's also additional costs when those systems fail. Someone, somewhere lost money when all those planes were grounded and services suspended.

At some point - maybe it already happened, I don't know - spending more on preventive measures and maintenance will be the path of least resistance.

[solidninja]

No, it exists because of all must bow to the deity of increasing shareholder value. Remember that good product is not necessarily equal or even a subset of the easy to sell product. Only once the incentives are aligned towards building quality software that lasts will we see change.

[insane_dreamer]

> Would you pay 10x (or more, even) for these systems?

if it's critical to your business, then yes; but you quickly find out whether or not it's actually critical to your business or whether it's something you can do without