On the big scale, like in gov't, the disasters that did not happen end up also not getting any credit to the institutions and regulators, so on the budget it feels (to uninformed voters) that these departments are simply wasting taxpayer money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preparedness_paradox
> On the big scale, like in gov't, the disasters that did not happen […]
Michael Lewis (of The Big Short fame) has two books on the things that government(s) do that no one else (often) can, either because they're too big, too expensive/unprofitable, or a co-ordination problem where it effects many actors simultaneously:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Risk
* https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/788713/who-is-govern...
"What roads would any dare to tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the Dúnedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?"
This is one of the more frustrating things working in SRE/ops/infra. Yes, if you have really good metrics and monitoring you can show to some egghead exec that might care that your numbers are improving - but lots of times that visibility doesn't exist, or no one cares very much. I've been advised more than once in my career to just "let it break" so when I come to fix it after I had warned about it breaking, it makes me more visible, when I easily could have prevented it in the first place. This mindset is rampant, in my own career anyway. I think it's really idiotic.
After all, Y2K came and nothing happened. What a hoax! /s
My team and I worked really hard for several years to make sure that Y2K didn't have any effect, or at least a dramatically downsized one. It worked but I did hear from several people that they were annoyed that we spent so much money, time, and resources on something that turned out to be "not that big of a deal". Arrrgggghh!!