> The management didn't want faultless programs because the company derived its stability from maintenance contracts.

The bane of my existence. Companies like these get a decade long contract with governments and large enterprises (typically outside the "tech" space) to maintain a system, and at the end it's often worse than when they started the contract. Grifters, all of them.

The worst offenders are the defense contractors. They know they don't have to work, sunk cost fallacy is strong in government contracting.