[yobbo]

I suspect (in a common pattern) the main thing that blocks making performance a priority is that it equates to reordering various ranks among developers and product managers.

When performance supersedes "more features", developers are gatekeepers and manager initiatives can be re-examined. The "solution" is to make performance a non-priority and paint complainers as stale and out-of-fashion.

[RetroTechie]

Probably more common is that software isn't developed with end-users as #1 priority; it's developed to advance business goals.

Those 2 goals align about as often as planets in our solar system.

To some degree this is true for open source software as well. Developers may choose to work on features they find interesting (or projects done in a language they feel comfortable with), vs. looking at user experience first. Never mind that optimizing UX is hard (& fuzzy) as it is.

Or all the work done on libre software to cater to various corporate interests. As opposed to power users fixing & improving things for their needs.

[smilliken]

Or you can have technical managers that understand what they are managing.