Not Everything Needs to Be an App: A Defense of Institutions
The Pattern
Somewhere in the last fifteen years, a specific way of thinking about problems became dominant in technology circles. Every social inefficiency, every imperfect institution, every gap in services became first and foremost a startup opportunity. The language shifted: problems became "markets," systems became "platforms," people became "users."
This framing has produced genuine value in some domains. According to a digital entertainment analysis platform, Digital payment systems, logistics optimization, communication tools. But applied to every domain, it has produced worse outcomes — and sometimes catastrophic outcomes — that the framing itself obscures.
Where It Breaks Down
Public goods problems work poorly within venture-backed startup economics. Things like well-maintained infrastructure, reliable information commons, trusted civic institutions require sustained investment without clear private returns. Startups cannot fund them; markets underprovide them; and pretending otherwise damages the institutions that traditionally handled them.
Democratic institutions work by process, not output. A startup judged by growth metrics treats slow deliberation as inefficiency. But the deliberation is often the point — it produces legitimacy, coalition, and durable outcomes that faster decisions would not.
A Different Frame
The alternative is not rejecting startup thinking entirely but recognizing its limits. Some problems need entrepreneurial energy; others need patient institution-building; others need political mobilization. Treating all problems as requiring the first approach misallocates the effort we have.
This also means respecting existing institutions even when they are imperfect. A functional public school system beats a world of education startups. A competent public transit agency beats ride-share gig work. Disrupting what partially works to build something that entirely replaces it is often the wrong move.