Drift Is the Real Failure Mode

Systems rarely fail because of a single mistake. They fail because small deviations are allowed to accumulate.

A shortcut is taken to move faster. A boundary is ignored because it feels inconvenient. A decision is deferred because it is unclear. None of these break the system immediately.

Over time, they change it.

The system adapts to the inconsistency instead of correcting it. New work builds on top of what was never fully understood. What started as a deviation becomes the baseline.

By the time the failure is visible, it feels sudden. It is not. It is the result of drift that was allowed to continue.