Ask Slashdot: Why Do Popular Websites Add New Functionality Really Slowly?

dryriver writes: If you are a user of a popular professional desktop software it is not uncommon for that software to get anywhere from 5 to 20 major or minor new features and functions about once a year to stay desirable and competitive. But it seems that hugely popular internet based sites and services like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Google Search, Gmail, Outlook, WhatsApp, Telegram and others get major new features/changes much, much slower than desktop software. Quite often you'll come across a barrage of breathless news articles that say "Popular Internet Service X will add Y feature starting from April 1st". It is often 1 single and very obvious feature or functionality being added that people have wanted for years, not a cluster of 5 or 10 funky new functions at the same time. Why is this the case? How is it that desktop software with just a few hundred thousand users and no more than a few dozen coders working can add 5 to 20 major new functions in just 1 year, and do this year after year, but a major internet based service with tens or hundreds of millions of users and presumably hundreds or thousands of techies working behind the curtain first keeps everyone waiting 3 years or longer to build a much requested feature into the system, and then only rolls out that 1 desired feature to great fanfare as if it is a huge achievement? Is it really that much harder to code major new features into an internet/cloud service, versus coding major new features into a desktop software? Or is this a deliberate business model that has become popular? Along the lines of "only roll out a major change or feature if the popularity of the internet service begins to decrease"?

Why Do Popular Websites Add New Functionality Real

[prishna]

Risk management and return on investment are key drivers for large companies, why introduce or make changes to something that is already working fine and bringing in revenue. With new technology/functionality comes the added cost of developing in new technology and training the workforce in upcoming technologies. The end users may also be resistant to changes. However, that said, to stay competitive companies do need embrace change so it's a tradeoff often to survive in a competitive market. Larger

Re:

[dryriver]

So if Youtube added a new way to index similar videos - a tree diagram you can traverse for example - that is "taking a risk"??? If companies making engineering and DCC software acted like this, the world would stand still. Projects that can be done in 4 weeks today would take 4 months to complete.