Even the NASA curiosity rover encountered a software error and now it's stuck. I think OP's argument stands.
And NASA software is not that complex if you think about it; at least it has fixed requirements; once they ship it, it's done. No more changes. This is different from some complex software which require constant changes and adaptation to changing requirements; in this case the code has to be designed to adapt easily; this is difficult to achieve and most developers/companies fail at that or in the case of companies, they only just barely succeed through the development of extremely expensive solutions.
Big companies like Google don't write efficient software; they use their capital to hire as many expensive engineers as possible to brute force the requirements until it works. That's why they keep rewriting projects from scratch every few years over and over; they don't know how to write adaptable software. Their software is somewhat complex, but still simple enough and they have enough capital so that brute forcing solutions are still feasible (for a high cost).
The same cannot be said about more complex tech like blockchain or large-scale machine learning systems; you can't brute force your way to a solution and full rewrites will actually set you back.
I work with high-assurance software in the blockchain space and only recently read a paragraph from some old NASA software quality textbook and thought damn.. this is awesome. It's anything but trivial!
And NASA software is not that complex if you think about it; at least it has fixed requirements; once they ship it, it's done. No more changes. This is different from some complex software which require constant changes and adaptation to changing requirements; in this case the code has to be designed to adapt easily; this is difficult to achieve and most developers/companies fail at that or in the case of companies, they only just barely succeed through the development of extremely expensive solutions.
Big companies like Google don't write efficient software; they use their capital to hire as many expensive engineers as possible to brute force the requirements until it works. That's why they keep rewriting projects from scratch every few years over and over; they don't know how to write adaptable software. Their software is somewhat complex, but still simple enough and they have enough capital so that brute forcing solutions are still feasible (for a high cost).
The same cannot be said about more complex tech like blockchain or large-scale machine learning systems; you can't brute force your way to a solution and full rewrites will actually set you back.