Not the poster in question, but I think some of it might just be the "big ball of mud" of long maintained software, and some of it may indeed be the managerial structures around software, which incentivizes managers to grow their teams and find problems for them to solve, regardless of the need of either the growth of team size, or the so-called problems.
And we all know bored developers will make up work for themselves and bikeshed themselves to death.
> a strategy
I don't think it's conspiratorial, so much as emergent. All structures which persist have means of ensuring their persistence. Institutions (including open ones) will push for things that further their existence, status, funding, and ultimately their power. They will make themselves indispensable, regardless of their actual value-added.
And we all know bored developers will make up work for themselves and bikeshed themselves to death.
> a strategy
I don't think it's conspiratorial, so much as emergent. All structures which persist have means of ensuring their persistence. Institutions (including open ones) will push for things that further their existence, status, funding, and ultimately their power. They will make themselves indispensable, regardless of their actual value-added.