Paula Bialski is associate professor for Soziologie der Digitalisierung at the Universität St. Gallen.
"Good Enoughness: towards a sustainable tech culture of maintenance and repair"
Abstract: Are the digital technologies we use really that smart, seamless and innovative? Those of us building software are accustomed to hearing a master narrative of efficiency, speed and perfection: corporate software developers should love what they are building, and what they build should be done quickly and with utmost innovation in mind. But what if, instead of efficient and awesome software, in reality we are really just building something that's "good enough"? What happens if we stop demanding excellence and just settle for stable, positive mediocracy?
This paper presentation will help us understand that software does not fit into the narrative of newness, speed and efficiency - giving us a more sustainable perspective of the digital media we use every day. Software, fundamentally, requires maintenance, works at various temporal modes, and is deeply prone to breakdown. In fact, software is accustomed to "good enoughness." For those coming from the sustainability corner of science, good-enough culture-one that promotes slowdown, modesty, or mediocrity-might remind us of the recent discussion around the economic theory of degrowth.
Based on years of research at a corporate software company, this lecture describes the various instances where software is "good enough" and where sufficiency is maintained, showing the way in which "good enoughness" is still relatively good.
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