Mastodawn

Waldo Jaquith Feb 13, 2023

There are two trends in government over the past 30 years that have collided to cause a never-ending series of high-profile failures:

1. Outsourcing anything technology-related, regarding tech as outside of government’s core competencies (or even government’s proper role).
2. Relying on technology to accomplish nearly all agency goals and intermediating interactions with the public through software.

Can you identify the problem here?

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Ryan Ford

@waldoj Very astute, but what's even more problematic is how the outsourced technology is handled by the vendors—largely it's viewed as a major payday with a low bar for expected quality. Vendors charge an arm and a leg for subpar, dated, buggy work. And the government happily eats it up and distributes it to the citizens.