> nobody was able to say what the "complete" sofware should look like We had "complete" software for decades. You can use an iterative development model until

> nobody was able to say what the "complete" sofware should look like We had "complete" software for decades. You can use an iterative development model until all of the major goals are achieved then ship a final product. After that it's just maintenance. Iterative development has consumed the ship and maintenance parts of product delivery to the point that the industry no longer even can recognize or remember that such a thing can exist. Enshittification is the result because if you keep going in and messing with a shipped product, the temptation to try to squeeze it for revenue when its market maxes out becomes irresistible. Modern development practices like CI/CD were invented to enable this behavior and really only build value during the earlier core development stages. After that it becomes an extractive process. It's kind of like how when colonial powers were building railroads in India, or Korea, or wherever. The intention was to use the rail lines to extract resources from the colonized territory, but the side effect is that the local people in the country also suddenly had improved transportation infrastructure and oh yeah, jobs. For a while the people who work on or near the rail line "prosper" but nobody remembers that the goal was to suck all of the lifeblood out of the countryside and move it to the ports. Once the line is complete the model flips to extraction and the development activity ceases, and everybody who had previously prospered because they could use the rail line to get jobs, education and health care wonders why life sucks now.