> You either think the astronomical number of bugs in delivered software is a problem or you don't (and good luck with that).
We don't need luck. Competition has already given us the answer that most bugs are ok. The vast majority of the software that creates literally trillions of dollars of economic activity, and pays most of our bills, is not mission critical. Software fails all the time with the only significant consequence being a developer has to spend some time fixing it. Sure sometimes money is lost. So is money lost when factory equipment needs repair.
Some software does deserve to be bug free when it might put lives at risk, like flight software or medical software. Perhaps even operating systems. But the vast majority of the software I use on a day to day basis does not fit that category. What significant harm does a bug in VS Code or Slack or even my OS cause me? None.
If bug free software gave a significant economic competitive advantage, smart folks would start writing it and win big in the marketplace. Considering this has had decades to happen, and has not, it's very unlikely that bug free is the winning competitive advantage when it comes to software. I'd guess the winning advantage is that the software is useful. Much like a car with many small problems is still useful.
The truth is that much of the software that exists today simply would not be worth building bug free and would never be profitable.
You can extend this outside of software development to see that it's true in a more general sense. Most of the manufactured products we buy are not perfect and do not last forever. Some even have flaws from the day you buy them, but flaws that can be worked around. Once on vacation I bought screwdriver at a dollar store. Poorly manufactured and it does have "bugs" compared to something I would have paid 10x the price for. But years later I still have it and it's good enough for some jobs.
You could potentially build a car that doesn't fail for any reason for a few hundred years. Only Bezos and friends could afford it. With that said, I'd like to see the negative externalities of pollution and waste included in the true cost of things we buy, so that we don't produce so many disposable things that society pays for in the long run. But that's a different discussion.
Please don't take this to mean that I don't take great pride in writing quality software that is as bug free as possible. I do. I also take great pride in meeting budget goals and deadlines. All successful businesses understand that competing goals must be balanced against each other.