> We all want consistency (probably to a degree greater than Apple is capable of delivering)
This thinking is the fatal poison of the tech industry. The further you repeat it, the faster the industry dies. Watch:
"We all want privacy, probably to a greater degree than Facebook is capable of providing."
"We all want browser competition, probably to a greater degree than Microsoft is willing to provide."
"We all want advertisement options, probably to a greater degree than Google can tolerate."
See what's happening here? You're not making a concession, you're flat-out accepting their failure. Apple can provide consistency, they're a trillion-dollar business that has every incentive to compete on their own merits. Instead they carve out arbitrary and harmful rules for each platform and then steelman it when any authority of any kind suggests that they're wrong.
This isn't a "perfect being the enemy of good" situation, it's degraded into "good being the enemy of intolerable defaults" instead.
My question "what systemic solutions are available on a scale like Apple's to maintain high-quality and strong consistency?" was sincere.
I'm neither complacent (as you seemed to imply) nor magically hand-waiving a "just do it" notion (as you seem to exemplify). I'm seriously interested in what it takes to effectively manage complexity as this scale.
This thinking is the fatal poison of the tech industry. The further you repeat it, the faster the industry dies. Watch:
"We all want privacy, probably to a greater degree than Facebook is capable of providing."
"We all want browser competition, probably to a greater degree than Microsoft is willing to provide."
"We all want advertisement options, probably to a greater degree than Google can tolerate."
See what's happening here? You're not making a concession, you're flat-out accepting their failure. Apple can provide consistency, they're a trillion-dollar business that has every incentive to compete on their own merits. Instead they carve out arbitrary and harmful rules for each platform and then steelman it when any authority of any kind suggests that they're wrong.
This isn't a "perfect being the enemy of good" situation, it's degraded into "good being the enemy of intolerable defaults" instead.