Software may be getting worse, but it used to be horrible

Jake Voytko argues that software may be worsening as code production accelerates, but nostalgia for a reliably high-quality past is misplaced: consumer software was often far more fragile than people remember. In the era when Windows dominated personal computing, buggy operating systems and drivers regularly caused crashes. Programs often failed to save work safely, leaving users to lose hours of writing; their reflexive Ctrl+S habits persisted even in Google Docs, which saved automatically. Security was weak enough for a child to bypass a store computer’s screensaver, while adware and viruses were commonplace. Computers also slowed badly as hard drives fragmented, sometimes requiring users to run maintenance tools themselves. Physical distribution did impose one constraint: companies had to ship a working version on disks or CDs, creating a basic quality floor.

Other failures arose from limited hardware, fragile media, and poorly designed online systems. A 1998 strategy game crashed when a country exceeded 255 units, reflecting how memory limits shaped software behavior. Scratched CDs, corrupted cartridges, and failing console contacts could make games unusable, with no simple replacement. Online Diablo II exposed further flaws: client-side cheats, fights over shared loot, item-loss exploits, duplication bugs, and scams flourished in the absence of safeguards and trusted social tools. Later versions addressed several of these problems with individual loot, protections against duplication, and safer corpse recovery. The examples support Voytko’s central point: modern software can be deteriorating, but earlier software was not a golden age of dependable design.