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On the other hand, having seen the software industry I don't really want its values applied to cars. Games used to be shipped on chips to customers with the as

On the other hand, having seen the software industry I don't really want its values applied to cars. Games used to be shipped on chips to customers with the assumption that they could never be updated, but now the expectation that that's possible results in multi GB release day patches. Games used to be shipped to consoles without network access but if Blizzard goes out of business tomorrow, Starcraft II will just fail to boot because the software you get isn't enough to run the game. Games used to make most of their money by selling you a fun game that you wanted to play, but now they make most of their money from DLC's or selling in-game currency. I don't want my car to move fast and break things. I don't want my car to fail to drive me to the hospital because it has updates to install. I don't want my car to drop features it had when I paid for it because some PM's bonus depends on me using their monetised features instead. I don't want my car to be measured by "works on my machine"-level QA. I don't want my car reporting telemetry. I don't want my car's UI to become unuseable over time because the developers shipping constant updates to it are working on the newer hardware instead of the hardware I have. I don't want parts of my car to stop working because an app developer doesn't support my car anymore. (I've lost access to many an iOS game because of this without changing any hardware myself.) I don't want my car to stop working because it doesn't support TLS 4.0 or 6g and the licence server requires it. I don't want my car to stop working because it can't find the licence server because Volvo went out of business, or even just decided they didn't want to support me anymore. I don't want my car to fail to unlock because of a network blip. I don't want my car to suggest I go to McDonald's instead because of an advertising deal. That's what embracing the software industry's norms will get you. Awful QA, shortsighted dependencies, terrible incentives, and the ability to monetise you.

jedberg 5y ago
Not every company embraces those sorts of worst practices. Especially hardware companies. Tesla and Apple are good examples of this. They have strong QA policies and make their money from hardware so they don't have to do all those "you must be connected" tricks. Sure, both still have bugs, but not like web apps and games. Most of what you listed applies to web apps and games, not bespoke software for hardware.
- ketralnis 5y ago
  Apple and Tesla specifically are not good examples of this https://www.zdnet.com/article/tesla-yanks-autopilot-features-from-used-car-because-they-werent-paid-for/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/tesla-yanks-autopilot-features... & https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay-113-million-to-settle-batterygate-case-over-iphone-slowdowns https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay... These both come from the habit and ability to remotely change what's already on my device without my knowledge or consent
TwoBit 5y ago
OK but with the complexity of games today there is no way such a game could be released bug-free. Could games be released better than they are though? Probably. We needed game software updates in order to allow the 10x complexity increase, but developers took advantage of that to also give them a couple more months of development time.

jedberg 5y ago

Not every company embraces those sorts of worst practices. Especially hardware companies. Tesla and Apple are good examples of this. They have strong QA policies and make their money from hardware so they don't have to do all those "you must be connected" tricks. Sure, both still have bugs, but not like web apps and games. Most of what you listed applies to web apps and games, not bespoke software for hardware.

ketralnis 5y ago
Apple and Tesla specifically are not good examples of this https://www.zdnet.com/article/tesla-yanks-autopilot-features-from-used-car-because-they-werent-paid-for/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/tesla-yanks-autopilot-features... & https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay-113-million-to-settle-batterygate-case-over-iphone-slowdowns https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay... These both come from the habit and ability to remotely change what's already on my device without my knowledge or consent

TwoBit 5y ago

OK but with the complexity of games today there is no way such a game could be released bug-free. Could games be released better than they are though? Probably. We needed game software updates in order to allow the 10x complexity increase, but developers took advantage of that to also give them a couple more months of development time.