For stories like this, 99% of the time it’s a government institution. That’s because the primary purpose of these is to leech money off people to provide an inferior service.
This happens because the worse the service the more money they get. “We need more funding” is their common cry but the marginal dollar provides zero or negative value as even more corrupt leeches flock to the system to extract all excess dollars.
I had this explained once by a civil engineer planning highway work. He said that teams who finish on-time and on-budget charge more. Newer teams less likely to meet requirements charge less to account for the higher risk. So it’s a risk vs. cost curve.
In civil engineering, risk is taken seriously and the cheaper pitches are less-often taken. In IT, decision makers don’t yet understand the risks so they always accept the lowest bid.
The interesting thing is that the technology to bypass this problem exists. There are early completion bonuses and late completion penalties. Both were available for the MacArthur Maze in Oakland, California.
That project finished rapidly. The reason for that is that it was important.
Most infrastructure is unimportant. We don’t need it. There is no marginal economic gain to it that justifies the spend (in time, and money) unless accounting for the political support provided by local pressure groups.
Comments
For stories like this, 99% of the time it’s a government institution. That’s because the primary purpose of these is to leech money off people to provide an inferior service.
This happens because the worse the service the more money they get. “We need more funding” is their common cry but the marginal dollar provides zero or negative value as even more corrupt leeches flock to the system to extract all excess dollars.
I had this explained once by a civil engineer planning highway work. He said that teams who finish on-time and on-budget charge more. Newer teams less likely to meet requirements charge less to account for the higher risk. So it’s a risk vs. cost curve.
In civil engineering, risk is taken seriously and the cheaper pitches are less-often taken. In IT, decision makers don’t yet understand the risks so they always accept the lowest bid.
The interesting thing is that the technology to bypass this problem exists. There are early completion bonuses and late completion penalties. Both were available for the MacArthur Maze in Oakland, California.
That project finished rapidly. The reason for that is that it was important.
Most infrastructure is unimportant. We don’t need it. There is no marginal economic gain to it that justifies the spend (in time, and money) unless accounting for the political support provided by local pressure groups.
If you're going to extrapolate your experience of US governments to a story about Europe, you could at least localise "marginal dollar".
The dollar is the universal global currency. It represents ,in a synechochal sense, money.
The behaviour is actually universal. Berlin wastes money on Linux conversion through the same process. Governments are governments wherever they are.
Sweden isn’t this paradise of non-corruption you think it is.