https://thebaffler.com/latest/spreadsheet-assassins-king
Excerpt quotes
• • •
More than the quality of any given code, the value of the largest SaaS companies is their locked-in network effects. Once a piece of software has entrenched itself in the bowels of corporate IT infrastructure, it’s a nightmare to dislodge.
Consider the colleges and school districts terrorized for decades by a crappy EdTech software, courtesy of a regional sales rep and nephew of the head administrator.
• • •
In the Kafkaesque realm of health care, software giant Epic’s 1990s-era UI is still widely used for electronic medical records, a nuisance that arguably puts millions of lives at risk, even as it accrues billions in annual revenue and actively resists system interoperability.
• • •
Billions of public pension and university endowment dollars are being burned on what amounts to hackathon curiosities, driven by the machinations of venture capital and private equity.
