Software may be degrading now, but it used to be far worse. As someone using computers since 1990, the author argues against nostalgia for the past. While today’s apps are buggy due to rapid code production without proportional error reduction, historical software was plagued by constant crashes.
Windows dominated with ~95% market share, and most users ran Intel or AMD processors. Unlike today’s continuous updates, companies then only got one shot to ship software on floppy disks or CDs, creating a quality floor. Still, the experience was miserable: the Blue Screen of Death struck unpredictably, often due to buggy device drivers installed from physical media.
The Windows OS itself leaked resources over time, causing gradual system decay. Applications lacked reliable autosave features, and when they did autosave, corrupted files were common. Hours of work vanished in seconds.
Despite these hardships, great programmers like John Carmack built enduring codebases, though they never represented the majority of software used. The past wasn’t better—it was just differently broken.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing