Caring about craft isn't precious — it's efficient. Sloppy work costs more later.

There's a way people frame caring about craft as a luxury — something you do when you have time, or when the stakes are high enough, or when someone important is watching. I think this gets it backwards.

In my experience, cutting corners on craft almost always costs more than it saves. Not in an abstract moral sense — in a very literal, practical one. Technical debt accumulates. Unclear communication creates rework. Rushed decisions need to be relitigated. The bill arrives eventually, and it's usually larger than the original savings.

Caring about how something is made is also a way of caring about the people who will use or inherit it. That seems worth something beyond efficiency too.