> You're implying that buggy software has no impact on the bottom line. I'm not so sure. Users weigh the availability of features against the quality of features.
The problem is that managers / those that determine priorities don't get the numbers, they don't see a measurable impact of buggy software. There's only two signals for that, one is error reporters - which depend on an error being generated, that is, software bug - and the other is user reporting, but only a small fraction of users will actually bother to make reports.
I think this is a benefit of open source software, as developers are more likely to provide feedback. But even then you have some software packages that are so complex and convoluted that bugs emerge as combinations of many different factors (I'm thinking of VS Code with its plugins as an example) that the bug report itself is a huge effort.
>The problem is that managers / those that determine priorities don't get the numbers, they don't see a measurable impact of buggy software.
I don't believe that. IT departments have to support users. Users complain and request support. It costs money and it affects productivity and everybody knows it.
But that's not enough. You would also have to believe that there are significantly less buggy alternatives and that the difference justifies the cost of switching. For big companies that is an incredibly high bar.
But small companies do dump software providers like my company dumped Microsoft.
[Edit] Ah, I think I misunderstood. You're looking at it from the software provider's perspctive rather than the user organisation. Got it.
The problem is that managers / those that determine priorities don't get the numbers, they don't see a measurable impact of buggy software. There's only two signals for that, one is error reporters - which depend on an error being generated, that is, software bug - and the other is user reporting, but only a small fraction of users will actually bother to make reports.
I think this is a benefit of open source software, as developers are more likely to provide feedback. But even then you have some software packages that are so complex and convoluted that bugs emerge as combinations of many different factors (I'm thinking of VS Code with its plugins as an example) that the bug report itself is a huge effort.