Every morning, the system produces a daily report. It sends it to the marketing-mgmt mailing list. Four recipients. The email system is modern. IT just upgraded the crypto layer and starting from 2025 it's been carbon-neutral. The delivery record for those four reports is perfect. IT gets bonuses because it works so well. There is just one problem: All four recipients left the company in 2005.

I'm writing a series called The Price of Software. This is the first part. A look into how we lose the claim to correct behavior. Legacy is difficult to work with because we can't tell right from wrong.