Thinking out loud:
Try thinking about law as the “source code” of an app called “government”.
It’s difficult to make a “hard fork” of the source code or write a new app from scratch that does “the same thing but better” with similar resources, but if the source code is a mess, the app is not going to work for all, or even most users.
The background, intention, language and timing of a contribution of source code and its contributor matters greatly in how that piece of source code is written and how it functions in the app. Trash in, trash out.
If one doesn’t plan out the goal or vision for the app and program the app with this vision in mind, you get an app that is messy and resource-intensive.
Just because the app presently attracts a commanding number of users doesn’t mean that the app is still the best in it’s class, only that it attracted its greatest number of users when it was the most viable compared to the other options. Now, most may only use it because it is what most of their friends and family may use or have used for a long time.
That app can always fail its users in some way, even if it’s a one-time massive screw-up. And if another app offers a better system at that moment, the formerly-dominant app will lose users and market share to the newer, better-featured app.
From Digg to Reddit. From Friendster to Myspace to Facebook. From IE to Chrome. From this government order to the next constitutional order.
