I’ve seen a recurring trend over the years and I can’t quite shake it; and after you’ve read this piece, I’d like to know your thoughts on the matter.
In a conversation I had with a close friend a while ago, we both landed on a slightly uncomfortable idea: the world, at some point, worked better than it does now — and a lot of the problems we’re trying to fix today are problems we created ourselves.
A quintessential example of this is environmental sustainability. For years, we’ve engaged in practices that harm the planet in every way imaginable, and now we launch initiatives to “fix” what we knowingly broke; almost as if the world came damaged from the start.
And strangely enough, I see a similar pattern in tech.
Now using that and frameworks in software engineering as an anecdote(and especially as a JavaScript developer watching the community release a new JavaScript framework everyday), it’s almost impossible to ignore how frequently new software is released, each one claiming to solve problems the previous ones didn’t. I remember sitting at an event once and realising that we’re constantly building new systems apart from existing ones, instead of partnering and improving what’s already there.
The same thing shows up on my social media feed. Every day, there’s a new tool, a new platform, a new “solution.”(some to a problem we didn’t even know existed). Many of them are impressive. But a lot of them are also… familiar. Slight variations of things that already exist.
They have different packaging, similar core, and yet, the original problems remain.
So what’s really going on here?
Is it innovation?
Are we lacking ideas?
Or are we just creating more noise?
This question has become more personal for me recently, primarily because it’s becoming increasingly difficult keeping up with all these tools, systems and products.
So I started asking myself why we don’t continuously refine instead of starting over, which is a waste of time and resources anyway.
I’m writing this today because right now, I’m at a crossroads: I can either continue investing all I can into a waste management initiative of my own, or join an existing one with the best statistics and odds of survival and real-world impact long-term.
I know partnerships might sound all rosy on paper, but partnerships aren’t always easy, terms can clash and alignment isn’t always guaranteed. But from what I’ve seen, most people don’t even get far enough to find that out. They don’t try at all.
And I keep coming back to this:
Because if the goal is impact, does starting something new always make sense?
Or is it sometimes better to strengthen what already exists?
Steering away from frameworks and startups for a moment, this applies everywhere. Businesses. Communities. Movements. Why build new systems, products and businesses every single day when we can just improve on existing ones?
And while there’s value in that, I wonder if we’ve unintentionally overlooked something just as important:
Maintenance. Improvement. Continuation.
What happens when everyone is building, but no one is sustaining? What would become of a world full of solutions but none really solving all the problems?
And to what end?
Just thinking out loud…
