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I'd say most skills needed to create quality software have very little to do with algorithms.

This kind of thinking is what got us where we are.

I don't agree at all and have pretty extensive experience from writing different kinds of software professionally in different companies to back that up.

Most software out there has very little to do with algorithms, and the problems with it couldn't be solved algorithmically.

Cutting corners for profits is the big issue.

I feel you are diving a bit too deep.

The problem at hand is a terrible algorithm, but you are going for the root problem of corner cutting everywhere thats leads to bad devs writing things hastily without thinking about the algorithms they write.

It's not about the algorithms, but about doing this properly, that's the root cause. Sometimes that will manifest as choosing the wrong algorithm, but that's a rare exception from my experience.

I think it depends heavily on the software.

Agreed, I'm talking about most of it, I realize there are obscure corners where it's all about algorithms.

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