I'm really getting tired of hearing "Boeing cut corners" every time this comes up. Boeing is more a customer-driven company than most other industries. They would want to design a new plane, they in-fact were proposing a redesign of the 737 using composites and new aerodynamics, but their customers, who drive everything they do, wanted more of the same immensely popular 737, but more efficient. So they had to take the 737 and make the changes to it to get the desired efficiency. The airlines also wanted minimized difference training for the MAX for pilots already flying the NG, so Boeing worked to minimize large changes. Somewhere in this pile of things they decided, and the FAA approved, MCAS being omitted from the training. That has since been largely rectified by the airlines.

I also have noticed that everyone seems to want to pile on Boeing, as if all these other factors don't exist and Boeing is the one employing, training and supervising the pilots and maintenance people.

While this is supposed to be a site for hackers, I would somewhat expect that an engineering problem, which this largely is, would be dealt with like an engineering problem. But the commentary on this issue seems to largely be driven by emotional responses. Noone is considering the potential and now actual impact of grounding aircraft. Grounding aircraft may actually cost more lives than letting them fly, because of the higher mortality rate for other modes of transportation.

In the case of the Ethiopian crash we know very little about what actually happened, what we do know not only looks similar to the Lion Air crash, but also looks similar to the last Ethiopian crash, which did not involve a 737 MAX aircraft at all.

Many people also criticize Boeing's reaction without realizing that there is a lot of money riding on exactly what they say and do. No they will not ground a while aircraft type just because two crashed, especially when there is no official data to go on for the second crash. They will be very reluctant to admit fault, since every time they admit something is wrong customers demand money and people sue.

The way it happened with the FAA making the call its less on Boeing to compensate airlines for the inactivity of their aircraft. Which is not what Boeing wants, but is less shitty.