It is not incompetence and it is not indifference. Four structural reasons, only one of which is anyone's fault.
Software is frequently bought by a principal or an operations lead and used daily by someone else. Purchasing decisions weight capability and price; daily experience weights friction.
Products optimise for whoever signs, which is a rational response to how they are sold.
Consumer software is disciplined by the ease of leaving. Advisory software holds history, integrates with everything, and takes months to replace.
That reduces the pressure to improve, and it is the single largest factor.
Anything touching client communications, records, or advice has a compliance surface. Shipping weekly is harder when a change may need supervisory review.
Some of this is genuine and some is caution that has calcified into culture.
The market does not punish bad software here, because leaving costs more than staying.
A new entrant must connect to custodians, reporting systems, and CRMs before it is usable at all. That is a large amount of unglamorous work before any of the actual product exists.
It raises the barrier to entry, which reduces competitive pressure on incumbents.
Better data connectivity has lowered the integration tax. Advisers who left large firms brought consumer software expectations with them. And clients now see the technology directly, which makes it a competitive surface rather than back office.
Weight daily friction properly in buying decisions, ask the people who will actually use it, and treat the exit terms as part of the evaluation.
Switching costs are the mechanism. Negotiating them down at purchase is the one point of leverage you have.
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