I'd think the problem you're seeing has more to do with the size and available resources of the company rather than the sector it operates in. Any company in it

I'd think the problem you're seeing has more to do with the size and available resources of the company rather than the sector it operates in. Any company in its early stage growth period has to prioritize time to market over most other priorities, but this is true for startups in all sectors and not limited to software. Comparing an established telecom with a predictable revenue stream versus a software startup doesn't exactly make for a fair comparison. If you instead keep the size and available resources at least somewhat consistent, and look at software written for say a large telecom vs a large software company, or say a software startup vs a hardware startup, for instance, I think the tendencies I outlined in the original post will still hold in an overwhelming majority of cases.