Why can't they just...? Revisited

(This is an updated version of a post I first wrote in 2017 . Given everything happening in tech today, it felt worth dusting off.) The question “Why can’t they just…” has been a common refrain I’ve heard throughout my career. “Why can’t they just X” is, at its core, a great question—“why can’t they just find spending cuts elsewhere?” or “why can’t they just tell us what the technical strategy…