This gets at a few issues:
- Account-based authentication for numerous systems has reached a point of increasingly negative user returns. Experian (citing unspecified research, probably a 2015 Dashlane study) notes that the typical user had about 100 accounts -- 130 for the US, growing at 15% per year, or alternatively, doubling every 5 years.
https://blog.dashlane.com/infographic-online-overload-its-wo...
- Crud reports are crud. I've got an issue with an Android app I use heavily (Pocket), which has been crashing with exceptionally annoying frequency (30x/week by one Android report, which suggested uninstalling the app). I've taken to simply reporting those, for various reasons without the ability to report this as the Pocket user, simply noting "app has crashed again". Pocket have finally responded (after weeks). The problem itself has been ongoing for years.
- There should be an analogue to James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State for software / SaaS vendors. Call it "seeing like a software developer". The power of software is that a small group (and frequently a single individual) can create a tool that is useful for and used by many -- hundreds, thousands, millions, billions. The weakness is that gathering and assimilating useful feedback is extraordinarily difficult. Most feedback channels can be overwhelmed by a few high-volume (and often not-particularly-useful) actors. Quality information is difficult to acquire. Sorting useful from non-useful information is expensive.
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078152/seeing-state
- Grouping similar bug reports is a challenge.
- Numerous projects fail to prioritise interests of advanced users. Something I've termed "the tyranny of the minimum viable user". Given the vast range of user skill levels, and the overwhelming domination of low-skill users, this has profound implications for the future of software, computers, and systems.