Maintenance
David Edgerton’s 2006 book The Shock of the Old argues that maintenance consumes a much larger proportion of technological effort than innovation. We celebrate builders. We ignore maintainers. But most of the world runs on maintenance — the invisible labor that keeps existing systems from falling apart.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, Cuba lost access to spare parts and fuel. The country had 500,000 horses in 1960, declining to 163,000 by 1990. By the late 1990s, Cuba had 380,000 horses replacing 40,000 tractors.
The Germans, “masters of the mechanized blitzkrieg,” used 625,000 horses when they invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. The horse contributed more to Nazi conquests than the V-2 rocket.
Old technologies persist because they work and because the cost of replacing them for marginal benefit is too high. Edgerton calls this “creole technology” — old systems repurposed into new life.
Why does new beat maintained? Visibility. You can show off a new building. You can’t show off a bridge that didn’t collapse. The maintainer’s success is invisible by definition.
The bias shows up everywhere:
- Startups over established businesses
- New features over bug fixes
- Growth over sustainability
- Construction over repair
The cost: we build things we can’t maintain. Systems that collapse the moment attention moves elsewhere.
The bridge that doesn’t collapse. The code that keeps running. The relationship that stays healthy. None of these happen by default. They require ongoing work that nobody notices until it stops.
Everything you love will require care to persist. There’s no building without maintaining.
Go Deeper
Books
- The Shock of the Old by David Edgerton — Historian’s corrective to innovation-obsessed technology history. Most of the world runs on maintenance.
- Maintenance: Of Everything by Stewart Brand — From the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog. On keeping things going.
- How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand — How buildings adapt over time. The “Maintenance” chapter is key.
Essays
- “Hail the Maintainers” by Andrew Russell & Lee Vinsel — The essay that launched the Maintainers movement. Argues for valuing maintenance over innovation.
Related: [[lindy-effect]], [[craft]], [[tools]]