Why isn't more software just... made good? Because you can make almost as much money making it badly as you can making it properly. Especially in 1998. And esp

Why isn't more software just... made good? Because you can make almost as much money making it badly as you can making it properly. Especially in 1998. And especially with huge government contracts. In fact with huge government contracts in the 1990s you could make more money doing it badly than you could doing it properly. Because if you quoted the price it would have taken to do it properly, the government would buy it from your competitor who was quoting the price to do it badly. Eventually crap project goes live once government has paid 4x the original estimate for it (because its better for everyone involved to pretend its not crap) and the company goes on to use that 'success' to bid for their next project.