> holding back industry from making something truly better and more reliable.
What "industry"?
If you are talking about the software industry, then I'd say you are creating a circular reasoning. If you are talking about all the other things that we actually need to do and which only incidentally have become too reliant on software to do it, then see back my original point: people don't need "better and more reliable" software to keep running their businesses.
What software engineers are being hired to work on:
- A facilities management company
- A bar/restaurant with a staff of 8
- An Architecture office
- A Law Firm with 10 associates
- A day care
- A car repair shop
- A cement factory
- A family-owned hotel
- A conference/event organizer
- A video production crew
- A roofing companySorry, but that logic is pure cope.
If you want to go down the value chain, then by definition the less valuable the software is and the easier to be commoditized. The automation is not going to help just the manager-turned-vibecoder, it's also going to help professionals to create FOSS alternatives that can be robust enough.
It's not going to happen overnight, but the trend is there.
If running your business to '90s standards is acceptable, sure, you can use AI to automate your manual processes with the same error rate and keep doing the same thing indefinitely.
But if the competitors have real software engineers and have used them to actually improve reliability, you'll be left behind.