Broken Trust: What Harness’ 2024 Report Reveals About Software Failures and Consumer Frustration

Imagine if your car broke down every other week or your tap water stopped running unexpectedly. Now consider how much we rely on software—just as essential as food, shelter, or water—and the consequences are equally impactful when it fails.  

Recent high-profile IT outages, such as banking disruptions and telecom failures, reveal a troubling reality: preventable software failures are no longer rare inconveniences—they are frequent crises that disrupt lives, shake trust, and demand urgent action. Software-related outages are becoming alarmingly frequent, and their consequences are far-reaching. People depend on software for essential services. When companies release bad code, it’s not just an inconvenience—it’s a breach of trust.

To better understand consumer sentiment, we conducted our 2024 Software Failure Sentiment Report across the U.S. and U.K. The survey, conducted with Opinium Research, exposes not just widespread frustration but also a growing demand for accountability and systemic change in software development.

The report reveals that over half (52%) of U.S. consumers have been directly impacted by software outages, with incidents like the CrowdStrike meltdown, banking disruptions, and telecom outages leaving millions stranded. More than a mere inconvenience, these failures have shaken trust in essential services like online banking, healthcare, and transportation.

Key Findings: Consumer Frustration and a Call for Accountability

• Broad Impact: Software outages are no longer rare—they are a global issue affecting millions. In the U.S., 52% of consumers report being directly impacted by IT failures, compared to 44% in the U.K., underscoring the widespread nature of these issues.  High-profile incidents like CrowdStrike disrupted airlines, banks, and hospitals, affecting 36% of U.S. respondents and 26% of UK respondents. 
• Severe Disruptions: The consequences of these outages are not minor inconveniences—they disrupt essential daily functions. Among the most common issues:some text
  • 45% couldn’t access websites or apps.
  • 36% faced interruptions in online banking.
  • 29% were unable to pay for goods or services.
• These disruptions aren’t just frustrating—they have tangible consequences, affecting critical services and daily routines. 

• Eroding Consumer Trust: The impact of outages goes beyond inconvenience—it damages the trust consumers place in companies. Half (50%) of U.S. consumers report being less trusting of companies that have faced IT outages, and an alarming 70% equate software failures to public health crises, saying they’re as bad—or worse—than supermarkets selling contaminated food. When trust erodes, it directly impacts brand loyalty and customer retention, posing a long-term risk to businesses.
• Demand for Accountability: Consumers are pushing for stronger oversight to ensure companies deliver reliable software. In the U.S., 73% support enforceable standards to address poor-quality software, a sentiment echoed by 74% in the U.K. This highlights the growing expectation that businesses adopt concrete measures to improve software reliability.
• Expectations for Action: Consumers are demanding tangible consequences for software failures. Half of U.S. respondents believe companies should compensate businesses affected by bad code, while 31% support government-imposed fines. These findings highlight the growing expectation that companies not only take responsibility for software failures but also take proactive steps to prevent them in the future.

Consumers have made their expectations clear: businesses must prioritize software resilience, accountability, and quality. This sentiment has reached a tipping point, with consumers demanding safeguards to prevent outages and ensure that critical services remain uninterrupted.

Restoring Trust: How Businesses Can Build Software Resilience

Adopting best practices can reduce outage risks and protect the digital infrastructure that consumers rely on daily. Techniques like canary deployments—rolling out updates to small user groups first—and feature flags—enabling teams to disable problematic features without disrupting entire systems—are key strategies for achieving software resilience. These strategies not only mitigate the risk of outages but also enable companies to maintain service continuity while addressing issues in real time. Harness can help organizations implement these strategies seamlessly by integrating canary deployments and feature flags into their software delivery pipelines, enabling faster, safer, and more reliable releases.

Consumers may soon also demand regulation. Just as car manufacturers are held to rigorous safety standards, software providers—especially those in vital sectors like healthcare, banking, and transportation—may also be held accountable for ensuring reliability. Standards in engineer training, quality assurance, and auditing may soon become as essential in software as they are in other critical industries.

The findings from the 2024 Software Failure Sentiment Report are a wake-up call for businesses. It’s time to rethink the approach to software delivery, prioritize reliability, and restore consumer trust. Those who act now will not only safeguard their competitive edge but also ensure they meet the expectations of a digital-first world.

‍