> is different because it's a consumer-oriented activity whose actual effects are probably impossible to quantify

Your perspective on software is that of a consumer, so you're not necessarily wrong. You're in the majority of people using software along with all those people having their "holy wars".

I'm just saying it's not intrinsic to software. The majority of people who write software for a living are silent about this because it's completely irrelevant to their lives.

It's like this with all other creative work too. As they say "a poor craftsman blames his tools", but more generally improvisation is expected when you're supposed to know what you're doing. Professionals can't afford to be helpless. In fact, that's why we have so many competing standards in technology to begin with. Constant reinvention is the most boneheaded way to progress, but my point is that this is in direct opposition to everything you're saying.

You seem to be insisting that there's ignorance where there is just apathy. For every one person whining, the internet has a chorus of hundreds. On the other side of the fence, there are dozens of people who could fix it in their sleep just ignoring it because it doesn't bother them that bad. That's what makes software so different from manufacturing plastic doodads at scale. You at least don't need a factory, but there are probably countless other reasons.