question about an assertion made on Dr. Doom's blog (Living a FI)

[ofits]

Preface: This is only tangentially related to FIRE by virtue of being content on a FIRE blog, but I wasn't sure where else to ask. Mods, let me know if this violates the rules and I will remove it and try asking elsewhere.

I read through Dr. Doom's entire blog a few days ago, and in his 2016 post, Definitely Not Purpose, he writes, "the majority of software which is created is not used at all due to irrelevance or better options from the competition..." Unfortunately the hyperlink redirects to a company home page, so I can't review the source, and Googling the topic hasn't been very productive. I could send a message to Dr. Doom (and still may), but he hasn't been active since June.

If anyone can provide the source he linked to, or even a different source that supports the assertion, I would be most grateful! Thanks in advance.

[mspym]

Thanks for reminding me of an excellent Dr Doom post, I really enjoyed re-reading it. I don't have stats or sources for the amount of unused software but do you really need them? This is longtail economics and holds true in many fields, not just coding. Off the top of my head publishing/music/films/phone apps/all manor of inventions, the majority of them never go anywhere. Some are roaring successes. I recently finished watching Halt and Catch Fire and the truest thing it shows is how much effort and work goes absolutely nowhere, over and over again. Most venture capital is lost and all those products funded never get used, or get bricked.

[ChpBstrd]

There's a development/marketing funnel where lots of efforts are made, only some of these projects make it to completion, and then only some of these completed projects actually work, and then only some of these products find any customers (for a while), and then a tiny subset of those are marketed successfully / profitably.

Here's a source for the project management portion of the marketing funnel. The answer is that 33% of IT organizations' projects are described as "failed project, budget lost". Note that this survey probably skews toward large, established organizations. I imagine startups and one-developer-shows have worse stats, and are less likely to respond to surveys distributed to members of professional associations.

https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/beyond-agility-gymnastic-enterprises-12973

Now if you could figure out the 2nd half - the number of softwares that are finished but fail at marketing, you could mathematically merge those two percentages to arrive at a total failure rate. I.e. total failures = project failures + (project failures)marketing failures.

[thesis]

I've never read hard numbers on this, but it wouldn't surprise me if that is true. Even I have an open source system that I built for somebody, who's not actually using it. I keep telling myself I'm going to clean things up just for the heck of it, but I have yet to touch it since last year.

It's been my impression that new technologies go through a lot of boom and bust, and I wonder if that's where some of this comes from. You write something in a hot new language, but two years later nobody cares about it because that technology actually sucked.

FWIW, I try to think economically about the technology I invest time and learning into. I really don't waste my time with the bleeding edge, as established technologies that show signs of being around a long time have a higher ROI, in my opinion. However, if you gamble your time and get lucky, certain new technologies take off and you get to be one of the few people with the most experience. Not a bad way to make big bucks, but you have to get a little lucky. Kind of off topic, but oh well.

[ofits]

Thanks for reminding me of an excellent Dr Doom post, I really enjoyed re-reading it. I don't have stats or sources for the amount of unused software but do you really need them?

It is indeed a great post. Do I need stats or sources? No, but I find the idea interesting and wish to read more about it. It ties into the Network Effect - perhaps I'll do more research from that angle, instead. Thanks for the reply.

Here's a source for the project management portion of the marketing funnel.

Thanks for the link! I'll update this thread if I find anything regarding the second half of the funnel.

It's been my impression that new technologies go through a lot of boom and bust, and I wonder if that's where some of this comes from. You write something in a hot new language, but two years later nobody cares about it because that technology actually sucked.

I would imagine so. Back when I tried my hand at web development, Javascript library churn and burn was the thing. There was even a drinking game - Google <noun>.js. If a library exists, take a shot. Thanks for the reply!