Sure, but we actually thrive here; my company gets called in when systems are not functioning, badly broken, etc and they cannot fix it themselves (usually because the people who built it are gone for decades and they just kept it running with ductape for this time). We never stay for long, we just patch the system and deliver a report. But for figuring out what went wrong and writing the report, we find out how it got to be that way and it's always the same; they suck. Talking banks, hospitals, factories, it really doesn't matter; it's all garbage what gets written and 'TODO: will refactor later' is all over the place. We see many companies from the inside and let me tell you; HN is a lovely echo chamber that resembles nothing in the real world.
I think the main lesson here is that most entities shouldn't be writing serious software themselves, but purchase software from reputable software companies whenever possible. At least who to hold responsible or sue is clearer in that case.
