Convex Returns

Not every piece of software needs to mutate daily. Some pieces of software truly have no upside potential to rapid change and adaptation. In some industries, every release of software goes through expensive, time-consuming certification. Avionics and implantable medical devices come to mind. That creates inescapable overhead to cutting a release—a transaction cost. If you have to launch astronauts into orbit armed with a screwdriver and a chip-puller, then you have some serious transaction costs to work around.

Of course, you can find exceptions to every rule. JPL deployed a hotfix to the Spirit rover on Mars;^[83] and when Curiosity landed on Mars, it didn’t even have the software for ground operations. That was loaded after touchdown when all the code for interplanetary flight and landing could be evicted. They were stuck with the hardware they launched, though. No in-flight upgrades to the RAM!

Rapid adaptation works when there’s a convex relationship between effort and return. Competitive markets usually exhibit such convexities.