The quality crisis in software

Software is getting worse. Not in every way, not everywhere, but the trend is undeniable. And the irony is that it's happening precisely when we have more tools, more developers, and more computing power than ever before.

The state of things

Look at the products coming out of the biggest, most well-funded tech companies in the world. Apple's Liquid Glass, the latest iteration of iOS and macOS, shipped with more bugs and usability regressions than any previous release. And this is Apple, a company with a long tradition of rocky OS launches. But this time it's different: it's not just bugs, it's a step backward in design, usability, and performance. The system objectively works worse than its predecessor.

Microsoft isn't doing much better. The rush to inject AI into every corner of Windows has introduced performance issues, optimization problems, and a general lack of polish that makes it a noticeably worse product. The operating system feels like a vehicle for AI features rather than a tool designed for the people using it.

And it's not just operating systems. Desktop and mobile applications are increasingly built as web wrappers, Electron-based shells that trade native performance and refinement for cross-platform convenience. Sonos made headlines with an app rewrite so bad it became a cautionary tale. 1Password has seen its share of criticism since its transition. Even the ChatGPT desktop app, built by one of the most-hyped companies in tech, has noticeable usability problems. Not to mention Claude's Mac application. Google, meanwhile, often doesn't bother shipping desktop apps at all.

The pattern is clear: companies are prioritizing speed and cost over quality. Interfaces are less polished. Keyboard navigation is broken or absent. Accessibility is an afterthought. Performance degrades with every update. Software that used to feel crafted now feels assembled.

The AI acceleration

The rise of AI-assisted development has supercharged this trend. Vibe coding and AI agents can generate enormous volumes of code in record time. And there's genuine value there, the productivity gains are real. But more code, produced faster, is not the same thing as better software.

When the incentive structure rewards shipping speed and feature volume over fit and finish, the result is predictable. Products launch half-baked. Technical debt accumulates silently. The user experience suffers death by a thousand cuts: a sluggish transition here, a confusing interaction there, a broken shortcut nobody noticed because nobody tested it manually.

What we do at MarsBased

We're not AI skeptics. Far from it. At MarsBased, we've gone deep on integrating AI into our development workflows. We use Claude and Cursor extensively for automating tasks and accelerating development. We use ChatGPT and Gemini for non-technical work. We've built agent-based workflows and seen significant efficiency gains across the board.

But, and this is the important part, we don't treat AI as a substitute for caring about the end result. We treat it as a tool that frees us to spend more time on the things that matter: clean architecture, thoughtful interfaces, accessibility, performance, and long-term maintainability.

We still believe there's a market for quality. For software that's well-built, not just quickly built. For products that feel polished and intentional. For codebases that won't become unmaintainable nightmares six months from now.

The case for craft

Not every company wants the cheapest, fastest option. Some understand that a well-produced interface creates trust. That performance is a feature. That accessibility isn't a checkbox but a design principle. That sustainable, maintainable code saves money in the long run, far more than the short-term savings from cutting corners.

With or without AI, there are still people and organizations that prefer a polished product over a rushed one. That market isn't going away. If anything, as the average quality of software continues to decline, the gap between mediocre and excellent will only become more visible, and more valuable.

**We're betting on that. **We'll keep using every tool available to us, AI included, to build software that works well, looks good, and lasts. Because speed without quality isn't progress. It's just noise.