We can write efficient software, but many times we decide not to.
1. Why bother optimizing when the developer's time is more expensive than RAM and CPU power? I see this a lot.
2. From the times that I can remember (mid '80) till now, only top developers write efficiently software that is efficient. Most developers are average (this is not bad, it is just an observation) and for the average developer software optimization is too expensive in terms of time invested. Some don't know how to do it, some are not proficient enough to do it in the constraints of the projects given to them by bean-counting managers. "good enough" quality is software management is much safer than "good enough" Boeing planes, so when Boeing is cutting corners then managers of developers cut even more.
> Why bother optimizing when the developer's time is more expensive than RAM and CPU power?
The comparison should be between developer's time, and time spent (wasted) by all users combined. This depends on # of users, and how often they run the software.
For a one-off, with a few dozen users running it occasionally, yes developer's time is expensive.
For popular software with 100M+ or billions of daily users, developer time is practically irrelevant, and spending weeks/months to shave off 1/10th of a second for each user's run, would be a no-brainer.
Most software sits somewhere in between.
But... developer is paid by company not by end users. And company cares about other things than the interests of society-at-large.
So it's mostly a case of bad incentives. Companies don't care about / aren't rewarded (enough, anyway) for saving end users' time. Open source developers might, but often they are not rewarded, period.
Also, RAM, CPU and disk space are shared resources on PCs. If your computer is slow you don't necessarily attribute it to any particular program, let alone website. As Terry Crowley says here https://terrycrowley.medium.com/software-ecology-bb4653046fd...
"... the cost of bloat is not directly borne by the those introducing it. Individual efforts to reduce bloat have little effect since there is always another bad actor out there to use up the resource and the improvements do not accrue to those making the investments."
1. Why bother optimizing when the developer's time is more expensive than RAM and CPU power? I see this a lot.
2. From the times that I can remember (mid '80) till now, only top developers write efficiently software that is efficient. Most developers are average (this is not bad, it is just an observation) and for the average developer software optimization is too expensive in terms of time invested. Some don't know how to do it, some are not proficient enough to do it in the constraints of the projects given to them by bean-counting managers. "good enough" quality is software management is much safer than "good enough" Boeing planes, so when Boeing is cutting corners then managers of developers cut even more.