Part of the problem is that the meaning of “beta” has gotten extremely diluted, and is often used as a CYA rather than an actual indicator of where the software

Part of the problem is that the meaning of “beta” has gotten extremely diluted, and is often used as a CYA rather than an actual indicator of where the software is in the dev cycle. Gmail was in “public beta” for what, five years? Game companies routinely give out “alpha” access that’s really more of a pre-release test and hype tool.