We Are Entering Our Maintenance Era: Why Our Obsession with Innovation Is Causing Software Decay

It started with a routine observation during a webinar on how journalists can utilize generative AI, but it struck a chord that resonates far beyond the media landscape. During the panel discussion, a participant bemoaned the reluctance of newsroom developers to invest time and resources into building advanced AI verification tools. The reason? The underlying problem of detecting deepfakes is in a state of constant, relentless evolution, meaning any tool built today would require continuous, never-ending updates to remain relevant.

For anyone living in the modern technological ecosystem, the sentiment is instantly familiar. For years, the daily reality of managing a smart home, a smartphone, and an array of digital services has been defined not by the thrill of initial setup, but by the exhausting, invisible labor of constant maintenance.

This goes far beyond merely applying security patches or operating system updates. It involves the tedious work of swapping out home automation rules every time a third-party provider alters its application programming interfaces (APIs). It means troubleshooting why a once-seamless workflow between Zapier and a vital digital service suddenly broke because a connection was quietly shut off. It includes the momentary disorientation of stepping into a car, only to find that an overnight software update has completely rearranged the dashboard layout and relocated critical driving information. Living with modern technology means living in a state of permanent flux.

The Friction of Constant Change

Instinctively, most consumers and workers understand that technology changes. Yet, operationally and mentally, society has yet to adapt to the relentless demand for continuous adaptation. Mentally acknowledging that a connected device holds ongoing value precisely because its feature set can continuously expand is one thing. Experiencing genuine frustration when a user interface suddenly changes, or discovering that a new recipe setting on a smart oven cooks chicken completely differently than it did last week, is entirely another.

Most human beings are simply not psychologically equipped to deal with constant, unpredictable change in every single aspect of their lives. Consequently, the friction that occurs when a car, an appliance, or a software program arbitrarily works differently than it did yesterday can be jarring and disruptive.

On an operational level, major businesses have failed to adapt to this reality as well, with corporate cultures often actively working against long-term stability. Alphabet’s Google provides a prime example of this systemic misalignment. Google famously rewards its internal employees and engineers for creating brand-new tools, applications, and software programs. Within this corporate framework, career advancement depends heavily on invention and novelty.

This dynamic fosters an internal culture where workers are heavily incentivized to prioritize innovation over maintenance. For everyday users and corporate partners, however, this translates into a frustrating user experience: favorite tools are left in a state of slow, inevitable decay, or when third-party partners make external changes, Google and similar companies may not react quickly enough to maintain stability.

The Cultural Clash Between IT and Operations

Google is far from alone in placing a premium on novelty while undervaluing maintenance. This exact cultural clash frequently plays out in industrial and manufacturing settings, where corporate information technology (IT) staff often lock horns with traditional operations (OT) engineers inside a physical plant.

Corporate IT teams frequently accuse operations staff of fostering a culture of refusal, routinely blocking attempts to add new automations or introduce modern technology to established plant processes. Yet, the hesitation on the operations side is rarely born out of simple stubbornness. Rather, operations engineers possess a decades-long history of building up industrial processes that are consistent, reliable, and fundamentally knowable.

Introducing IT systems into a finely tuned physical environment introduces entropy and an immediate demand for new maintenance procedures—demands that IT departments can sometimes balk at supporting once the initial installation is complete.

While the traditional industrial operations side has a deeply ingrained cultural appreciation for maintenance and stability, the modern tech-driven IT side does not. As society moves deeper into an era where computing is embedded into virtually every physical device and industrial process, bridging this cultural gap is becoming critical. Software, by its very nature, decays. And under the pressures of rapid technological development, it decays remarkably fast.

Rethinking How We Value Software and Skills

The inevitable decay of software will continue to exert a growing impact on daily personal and professional lives. Because of this, the tech industry and corporate employers alike must begin incentivizing developers to maintain systems with the same enthusiasm they reserve for building new ones.

Organizations need to intentionally carve out dedicated time in employees’ work weeks to allow them to comfortably adjust to shifting user interfaces, altered workflows, or changes in backend services. At the same time, companies must leave space for workers to explore new tools and technological advances, recognizing that adaptation and familiarization are forms of productive, necessary work.

In established professions like law or medicine, practitioners are required to undergo continuing education to maintain their credentials. Any modern profession that regularly interacts with technology—which will soon encompass virtually every job market—needs a similar institutional ethos. Workplaces must both incentivize and actively support employees as they attempt to navigate a landscape of continuous change, including the complex shifts brought on by artificial intelligence.

While this transition requires a more curious and engaged workforce, the burden cannot rest entirely on employees to muster up the continuous energy and enthusiasm required to keep pace. Maintaining digital services and adapting to shifting software platforms carries genuine economic value, and it must be treated and compensated as such.

The Economic Realities of the Maintenance Era

On the consumer front, this economic shift may mean a move toward long-term product subscriptions, ensuring that the companies behind everyday smart devices have the ongoing revenue required to fund continuous developer costs and backend maintenance. Alternatively, it may require manufacturers to sell products with transparent, predetermined expiration dates outlining precisely how long the company plans to support and maintain the software.

If society is truly committed to embedding intelligence into everyday products, the focus cannot remain exclusively on flashy new features and perpetual innovation. Stakeholders must carefully consider how those products will be maintained over their lifespans, and how that essential maintenance will be funded.

As computing continues to weave software and services into daily workflows, and as more jobs demand an innate ability to embrace new technological innovations, businesses must invest heavily in maintaining their employees’ skills.

Constant innovation in the absence of stability is fundamentally exhausting. Because modern innovation is almost entirely software-based, it is inherently prone to rapid entropy. Society must learn to value the people and the time required to counteract that entropy, while ensuring that both employees and consumers are given the necessary space, resources, and support to adjust to a world in perpetual motion.