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Ask HN: Why the need for newer versions of software?

3 points by eecsninja ↗ HN
I feel like when an application software product gets released, there is never an end to the changes to it. Year after year, there are new versions being released. I wonder what actually goes into these new versions.

Some things I get: - For hardware development tools, newer versions will support newer hardware models. - Web browsers need to keep up with the evolution of the web. - Operating systems need to support different form factors and architectures.

But many things I don't get: - Word processors - Spreadsheets - Photo editors

What more functionality do these need? Maybe for a fraction of users, some new features are useful. But when most users use only the established features, why is there such a pressing need to release new software year after year?

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conductor
> But many things I don't get: - Word processors - Spreadsheets - Photo editors

In 2012 Mozilla stopped innovating its Thunderbird mail agent [0]:

"Is Thunderbird a likely source of innovation and of leadership in today’s Internet life? Or is Thunderbird already pretty much what its users want and mostly needs some on-going maintenance?"

[0] - https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/07/06/thunderbird-stabi...

lazylizard
this last week.. one automation tool(it roughly allows users to use a GUI to click jobs together) customer wanted the ability to RD/rmdir the remote directories after a sftp get(yea, the tool didnt have this in the gui)... another one , using plain old sftp batch scripts, wanted the ability to use password login in his scripts.. some users will not(cannot?) use workarounds and want their software to do everything for them? and if the developers listened, the software will grow and grow and command line switches will be a mile long and GUIs will be 20 levels deep.. :p
NAFV_P
"What more functionality do these need? Maybe for a fraction of users, some new features are useful. But when most users use only the established features, why is there such a pressing need to release new software year after year?" (With ABBA playing in the background) "$MONEY $MONEY $MONEY\n"