The era of “fast-fashion” software

In recent years, the world of design and development has started to look a lot like fast fashion. Everything is made faster, cheaper, and with less care. And while that might sound efficient, it’s actually a worrying sign: we’re creating digital products with no meaning, built to be replaced before they mature.

I see it all the time. Teams that want to ship “now,” clients who demand results in weeks, and designers who settle for templates or AI prompts just to get something out the door. The mantra seems to be: “as long as it works, it’s fine.” But no, it’s not fine.

Artificial intelligence has accelerated this cycle. With the right prompt, you can have a “ready” design or code in minutes. But that same code, that same interface, becomes a problem when it needs to be maintained. Nothing is consistent, and what looked like savings ends up becoming debt.

It also happens with misunderstood agile methodologies. Many companies confuse moving fast with making progress. Teams get obsessed with hitting sprints, showing deliverables, and releasing every week. But when speed becomes the only goal, quality gets lost along the way. MVPs get built that end up as final products, without research, without testing, without foundations.

The result is a pile of lightweight, brittle, hard to maintain products. Software that “works” for a demo, but not for real life. It’s the digital version of cheap garments: they look good at first, but fall apart after the first wash.

The "fast fashion" of software is a race to nowhere. A cycle of constant novelty that rewards appearance over substance. Designs without purpose, products without a soul. And the worst part is, it masquerades as innovation.

Designing and developing with care doesn’t mean going slow. It means building something that can grow, be maintained, and that respects users and the planet. We don’t need more new products every week. We need products that are still worth using five years from now.

"Fast fashion" turned clothing into trash. The risk now is that we turn software into the same.