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Comment by tolmasky | Hacker News Reader

There is also a secondary effect where more complex systems generate a bunch of surrounding materials: tutorials, videos, etc. It also creates job security for the people who learn it, as they have a necessary skill and responsibility in the company, as opposed to something that "just works" which doesn't require that.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-employment_theorem

So many people in IT have a job because if software were constructed that would be both simple & Just Work, those jobs wouldn't exist.

It would seem that way, but organizations that are truly about improving and growth would have the people available to help improve other things.

As a SQL Server DBA I couldn't possibly understand what you mean.

(For simple cases it "just works" just don't look under the hood or try to do anything non-trivial and it'll be fine.)

Yup sometimes it feels like AWS and Azure are like this.

Bingo. Complexity is vendor lock-in catnip

Of course. If you were running an evil open-source company, you would favor "solutions" that generates demand for the services you sell (training, tech support contracts,...) while maintaining the belief that all this is necessary in "modern" IT.

I think it's Rich Hickey who links in his one of his talks complexity with entanglement through etymology. This entanglement is sometimes also there to bind the customer. Although more often the "never attribute to malice..." rule is at work, as it's just easier, cheaper, etc... to let the complexity grow.

You make it sound like Scientology or some such. The analogy might be apt.

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