I disagree wholeheartedly that there isn’t much to study. Direct File was actually a resounding success, especially when you consider how much difficulty governments tend to have shipping good software products. There is a lot of good information in here that government entities can learn from.

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mixdup an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Including how and why it died. That is an important lesson for the entire governmental enterprise, including all decision-makers, to learn: that government CAN deliver something good and one single person should not be in totalitarian control

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IncreasePosts an hour ago | parent [-]

I think it speaks to doing things "the right way". Direct file could have been mandated by Congress, but it wasn't. Instead it only directed the IRS to do a "study" as a "voluntary agency initiative". That left full control of whether it should be done in the hands of the IRS and the executive branch.

	▲	throw0101d 38 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Direct file could have been mandated by Congress, but it wasn't. Something being mandated by Congress is no protection at times: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Inter... (Or the Constitution for that matter it seems.)
	▲	LastTrain a minute ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yeah that would have protected it /s

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firesteelrain an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It had talented software engineers involved including with the marketplace. It succumbed to political forces