I think the only proprietary software companies with any shot at longevity are Japanese companies. First Japan leads by far the ranking of oldest companies in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies). Then we have actual software like Zelda Breath of the Wild which is a technical marvel comparable to the original Rollercoaster Tycoon considering how well it runs on the severely limited architecture of the Switch.

I think this boils down to profit not being the only driving force for these companies, but prestige and a sense of duty and responsibility towards something larger and less immediate.

I think you know nothing about Japanese software.

You're assuming long lasting soy sauce companies have anything to do with software development. Japan produces great video games despite how terrible otherwise the developer environment and culture is there and nearly all of the other software shows it.

This podcast about the history of zaibatsu, hardware, and software comes to mind. https://www.disruptingjapan.com/the-forgotten-mistake-that-k...

> Software was not viewed so much as a product, but more like a service, similar to integration, training, and ongoing support and maintenance. It was usually sold on a time-and-materials basis, and sometimes it was just thrown in for free to sweeten the deal. The real money was in the hardware.

> Software development was considered rather low-skill work. It didn’t pay well and was viewed as a kind of clerical work. The job was simply to write software that was close enough to whatever sales had promised the client while they were out drinking last week.

Japanese software and software technology culture is amongst the worst in the world. They're famous for failing to adopt modern ways of working, tools and as an industry is seriously struggling. There's fantastic video in this from Asianometry: https://youtu.be/ky1nGQhHTso

There is nothing inherently special about Japan or Japanese people. You can pull similar examples from many other countries.

Bro has never played the thousands of shitty visual novels. Hell even from software games, which are beautifully well designed, are technically embarrassing

> Breath of the Wild which is a technical marvel comparable to the original Rollercoaster Tycoon considering how well it runs on the severely limited architecture of the Switch.

What? It can’t even maintain a stable 30fps on its own target hardware. That’s not an example is point to for something running “well.”

Software

Software Japan