> Most users just absolutely do not know about, care about, or worry about security, privacy, maintainability, robustness, or a host of other things.

That is a problem that needs to be fixed in those users, not something we should take advantage of as an excuse for releasing shoddy work.

> For some reason this is continually terrifying and shocking to many.

For many reasons.

It means that a good product can be outcompeted by a substandard one because it releases faster, despite the fact it will cause problems later, so good products are going to become much more rare at the same time as slop becoming much more abundant.

It means that those of us trying to produce good output will be squeezed more and more to the point where we can't do that without burning out.

It means that we can trust any given product or service even less than we were able to in the past.

It means that because we are all on the same network, any flaw could potentially affect us all not just the people who don't care.

The people who don't care when caring means things release with lower cadence, are often the same people who will cry loudest and longest about how much everyone else should have cared when a serious bug bites their face off.

and so on… … …

Are you suggesting we should just sit back and let then entire software industry go the way of AAA games or worse?

> > Most users just absolutely do not know about, care about, or worry about security, privacy, maintainability, robustness, or a host of other things.

> That is a problem that needs to be fixed in those users, not something we should take advantage of as an excuse for releasing shoddy work.

Ok. Tech folks have been trying to educate users and get them to make better decisions (in the viewpoint of those tech folks) for a long time. And the current state points to how successful that's been: not very. This isn't exclusive to software... many industries have consumers who make unsound long-term choices (in the viewpoint of experts).

Taking advantage? Besides cases where folks are actually breaking the law and committing fraud, this isn't some kind of illicit activity, it's just building what the users choose to buy/use.

> It means ... It means ... It means ... It means ...

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, and perhaps.

> Are you suggesting we should just sit back and let then entire software industry go the way of AAA games or worse?

I'm not sure what "the way of AAA games" means. I'm just laying out how I view the last 30 years of the software industry.

I don't see any reason to expect significant change.