“Technology Holy Wars Are Coordination Problems”, 2020-06-15 (; backlinks; similar):
Flamewars over platforms & upgrades are so bitter not because people are jerks but because the choice will influence entire ecosystems, benefiting one platform through network effects & avoiding ‘bitrot’ while subtly sabotaging the rest through ‘bitcreep’.
The enduring phenomenon of holy wars in computing, such as the bitterness around the prolonged Python 2 to Python 3 migration, is not due to mere pettiness or love of conflict, but because they are a coordination problem: the problem is not getting everyone to make a good decision, but making the same decision. Apparent problems with an unpopular platform may actually be unacknowledged parts of an attempt to coordinate use of different platform: dominant platforms enjoy strong network effects, such as reduced bitrot as it is regularly used & maintained by many users, and can inflict a mirror-image bitcreep on other platforms which gradually are neglected and begin to bitrot because of the dominant platform.
The outright negative effect of bitcreep mean that holdouts do not just cost early adopters the possible network effects, they also greatly reduce the value of a given thing, and may cause the early adopters to be actually worse off and more miserable on a daily basis. Given the extent to which holdouts have benefited from the community, holdout behavior is perceived as parasitic and immoral behavior by adopters, while holdouts in turn deny any moral obligation and resent the methods that adopters use to increase adoption (such as, in the absence of formal controls, informal ones like bullying).
This desperate need for there to be a victor, and the large technical benefits/costs to those who choose the winning/losing side, explain the (only apparently) disproportionate energy, venom, and intractability of holy wars.
Perhaps if we explicitly understand holy wars as coordination problems, we can avoid the worst excesses and tap into knowledge about the topic to better manage things like language migrations.