Here's a reason I heard once. I've never heard anyone else mention it, so it's probably BS, maybe a lawyer or accountant can confirm or deny. Developing new fe

Here's a reason I heard once. I've never heard anyone else mention it, so it's probably BS, maybe a lawyer or accountant can confirm or deny. Developing new features is classed as "productive" or "R&D" or such, which means companies can claim some kind of tech subsidy or tax rebate on employees' wages for time spent doing it. Maintenance tasks like fixing bugs and upgrading servers don't come under this classification, so they can't. The incentives are thus set up for upper management to push against and actively neglect maintenance efforts.