Broken Trust: Harness’ 2024 ‘Software Failure Sentiment Report’ Reveals Consumer Frustration Has Reached a Tipping Point
Critical software failures are eroding trust, with 70% of consumers equating outages to public health crises like contaminated food.
Harness, the AI-Native Software Delivery Platform company, unveiled its 2024 ‘Software Failure Sentiment Report,’ which highlights mounting frustration over IT outages caused by poor-quality software updates. These outages are no longer rare incidents but rather frequent occurrences, directly impacting over half of U.S. consumers. According to the survey, many now equate these failures to critical public health crises, such as supermarkets selling contaminated food like E. coli-tainted lettuce or salmonella-infected chicken.
The survey paints a stark picture. Based on a sample of 1,000 U.S. consumers conducted by Opinium Research, it shows that 52% of consumers have been impacted by a company’s IT outage, with incidents like the CrowdStrike meltdown, recent cell service disruptions at major telecoms companies, and banking access issues leaving millions stranded. These outages are not isolated incidents—they are symptoms of deeper issues in software development.
The report’s key findings underscore the urgency for change:
- 73% of consumers support regulation to hold companies accountable for delivering poor-quality software.
- 70% of consumers believe releasing faulty software that causes outages is as bad as—or worse than—supermarkets selling contaminated food.
- 50% of consumers think companies that release faulty software should compensate affected businesses, while 31% support government fines.
- 36% of consumers were impacted by the CrowdStrike outage, which disrupted essential services like airlines, banks, and hospitals.
The survey also revealed the most common disruptions caused by software failures. These include the inability to access websites or apps, cited by 45% of respondents, interrupted online banking (36%), and being unable to pay for goods or services (29%).
“Software-related outages are becoming alarmingly frequent, and their consequences are far-reaching. These failures demonstrate a troubling pattern: preventable errors in software development are causing widespread disruption,” said Trevor Stuart, General Manager at Harness and co-founder of Split Software (acquired by Harness). “People depend on software for essential services like banking, transportation, and healthcare. When companies release bad code, it’s not just an inconvenience—it’s a breach of trust.”
The survey results from Harness send a clear message: companies must take action to ensure software resilience and protect the digital infrastructure consumers rely on daily. Building trust requires addressing failures through systemic changes and tactical improvements.
To achieve this, businesses should adopt proven strategies for improving software reliability. Techniques like canary deployments, which involve rolling out updates to small groups first, can help catch and address issues before they impact a larger audience. Similarly, feature flags—on-off switches within software—allow teams to quickly disable problematic features without affecting an entire system. By implementing best practices and adhering to established standards, companies can significantly reduce the risk of outages, protect consumer trust, and safeguard the digital infrastructure we depend on.
More insights from the Harness 2024 Software Failure Sentiment Report can be found here.
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