I want to talk about quality.
Many opinion leaders in testing, and even the ISTQB, are trying to sever “quality” and “testing”. And partially, they have a point: testing doesn’t directly change the quality of a product. But I think testing, executed by anyone in the company, has a massive indirect impact on quality. We’re not the ones building. We shape what gets built. That matters, and I think it should be emphasized.
I think the testing and quality industry should sit down and rethink its purpose, go back to basics and revisit why there was a need in the first place. Why companies started to employ dedicated resources for testing their products. And I strongly believe it was not because they didn’t trust their programmers, it was not because others were lazy to do the work. It was because of complexity and criticality, and because of the different focus. The focus of “what can go wrong?”.
“The first test team is formed by Gerald M. Weinberg, working as manager of Operating Systems Development for the Project Mercury. Project Mercury is the first human spaceflight program of the United States.”*
This was about sending humans to space and not killing them along the way.
Stick with me, I promise this connects.
Cory Doctorow has this word: enshittification. It describes the lifecycle of big platforms. First, we get a great experience, real value, no strings attached. Then, once we’re locked in, the focus shifts to businesses. And finally, when both users and businesses are trapped, it becomes pure cash extraction. “Service owners” don’t care about anyone anymore. They killed their competitors and built their monopoly. If anyone tries something against them, they’re bought out or cancelled, muted, destroyed (and then acquired for pennies).
Lately I keep hearing the term “technofeudalism”, which is a modern economic system where big tech companies hold power similar to feudal lords. They provide diminishing value, but we need them to “survive”. We use their “land” because there’s nowhere else to go. I’m just a hobby economist, but I’m part of society and I feel the consequences of this new world order.
My personal answer to that is decentralisation and open source. Decentralisation is another deep topic, so let’s focus only on the latter. It gets misunderstood because people hear “open source” and think “free”. But making software open source was never about the price. Operation and maintenance still cost money, time, and energy. It’s much more about transparency. It’s about development driven by the people who actually use the thing. No single “lord”. No extraction endgame. A collective ownership of the tools we depend on.
Why does this matter for us? We fight for quality in our products. Shouldn’t we fight for it in our platforms too? I believe in the idea of everyone’s internet. I’m not against paying for freedom or advertisements. I’m against abusing systems, companies, and people. I’m against monopolies. And I think we, people working in tech, should see more clearly than anyone that where we’re heading is broken, and that we have the power to change it.
Forgetting who you serve. That’s the disease. I’m assuming you believe in better software. Technology should serve humanity, not rule it. Enshittification and monopolies poison that belief every single day.
As the year ends, let’s meditate on that. And maybe, just maybe - get a little angry about it.
Thank you for being here. See you in the next one.