The most frustrating thing is that we seem to be getting worse, not better. We're not learning from mistakes, we're too busy churning out the next buggy release to review the mistakes in the last one :(
When huge software companies like Google and Microsoft are churning out buggy crap, it's easy to see why others assume they can't do any better.
I doubt we're getting worse. At worst, we're staying even as complexity grows tremendously. I would guess we're probably improving slightly despite insane growth in complexity.
I would say that with great size, like Google and Microsoft, comes a greater difficulty in making bug-free products. Too small and you don't have the funding, but the sweet size is probably somewhere between a "small business" and "Google". Companies the size of Google have a lot of bureaucracy. They have a million products. They have thousands of developers. And in the end, the majority of the business doesn't even come from these glitchy products. It's understandable that noone is really up in arms over these bugs because upper management doesn't give a shit, and the developers only give a shit in so far that they aren't fired. Sometimes you'll have developers who care because of pride in their work, but they're the minority.
The reason management doesn't care is that it isn't important. If a bug eventuates on a web page, the impact is minimal usually.
There are contingencies if a FAQ page is blank like in the article example. The user can visit the contacts page and email their question. Crisis averted.
Most of this web stuff is relatively trivial in terms of impact.
I used to work in ASIC development where the impact of a bug is massive. Hence the verification effort and rigor should be much higher.
When my friend was talking about buying a Prius, he saw Priuses everywhere for a few weeks. It's not that the Priuses weren't there before: it's just that he didn't notice them as much before.