Hopefully these services can be restored in 3.5 years. One of the greatest things to happen to aging infrastructure of this country in the last 10 years as a lot of our systems are based on aging military systems.
We just need it, there’s no question of the benefits and there were no negatives to speak about.
Thank you President Barack Obama! A true leader and patriot.
True, but software is slightly easier to restore service to than a razed physical building, for example. The support/staff/operations part still takes time and resources, but it is a little easier.
USDS was borne out of the healthcare.gov debacle, which resulted in providing affordable healthcare to millions of uninsured people. They may not have had an equivalent sized win yet but they have tremendous accomplishments for a tiny organization.
And a lot of bridges fell into disrepair, roads get worse, etc. Gridlock has made funding anything pretty hard in the last decade, and certain parties are so anti spending they won't try to fix it
That's what happens when parties govern by executive fiat instead of relying on legislation for things like that. Things rammed through by flimsy executive action are fragile and easy for the next administration to cancel.
We could have higher taxes on the wealthy and good healthcare. But to do that, the side that claims they want that and that they believe in "democracy" would have to not only post on Bluesky about it, they'd have to (A) vote, and (B) convince (rather than demonize) the moderates who are skeptical of them. We'll see in a while if they learned that lesson from 2024.
I was a big fan of the USDSO at the origin, definitely it's previous iterations, but man was it so bad at getting their improvements any publicity. Then and now they (and Democrats) made the fatal mistake that the slow march of government would be enough for public support. This website too is from that same strategy: "If we simply show Americans the machine they'll understand what they've thrown away!" It's very Aaron Sorkin's West Wing.
The reality is that the average american doesn't give a shit about the machines. They want better lives and they haven't gotten that for a long time. Talk to some old guy at a diner about why they were a Democratic voter and you won't hear "The Social Security Administation got my checks on time." You'll hear about the New Deal, wage increases, and how they can retire.
DirectFile was a material product that had a 94% satisfaction rate.[0] Within the remit of this organization, if making filing taxes free and easy doesn't count as making people's lives better, then I'm not sure what does.
My completely unfounded theory is that the West Wing broke the brains of an entire generation of center left leaning Americans. Led them to believe that being noble and earnest brings you electoral rewards, that you should break bread with your opposition, who are fundamentally reasonable people capable of compromise.
I think Trump 2.0 might have finally finished that mindset off but good lord did it take a long time.
> that you should break bread with your opposition
I was agreeing with you completely until I hit this phrase.
What Democrats have you seen "breaking bread with" their opposition? Most Democratic politicians and pundits (not saying voters) spend most of their effort on demonizing those they disagree with, on intentionally imputing the worst motives for their every opinion. If you don't support the most maximal definitions of every ideal they have, you're a bigot. If you didn't vote for Harris, you're a monster who must love Trump. etc.
The West Wing Dems could actually bring themselves to hold their noses and cut a deal with their Republicans that gave each side something important to them. To be fair, both parties now consider that practice to be basically treason.
The example they set, and the systems and processes they put in place, are still alive.
In peril? Sure, frequently.
But the USDS, and the work they started, goes on, even today.
Interestingly, the executive order which changed USDS's name seems to consider that work important: it tasks the renamed United States DOGE Service (which is separate from the DOGE temporary organization or the DOGE agency teams, created with separate charters in the same executive order) with:
> a Software Modernization Initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems.
Whatever else you might think about DOGE or that executive order, it's interesting to note that the government tech improvement goal of the original USDS appears to have been underlined/re-emphasized, rather than crossed out, in this case.
This wasn't that long ago. And it was very active in public ways over the Obama administrations etc. Sure you can find numerous discussions about various site launches and initiatives around here over the years. Definitely were discussions and fervent attention over in the Design community as things progressed. Why is everyone treating it like some forgotten Atlantis project?
Don't underestimate how quickly things end up in the memory hole - it's better to preserve stuff while it's recent than try to recreate it when it's stale.
Since we’re celebrating an obviously positive advancement in infrastructure attributed to one side, I’d like to know about the obviously positive advancements from the other side (in all fairness).
Readit News
We just need it, there’s no question of the benefits and there were no negatives to speak about.
Thank you President Barack Obama! A true leader and patriot.
I am not sure it works like that. Destruction is easy, building is hard.
Meanwhile, healthcare housing and education got way more expensive and taxes for the wealthy went down.
We could have higher taxes on the wealthy and good healthcare. But to do that, the side that claims they want that and that they believe in "democracy" would have to not only post on Bluesky about it, they'd have to (A) vote, and (B) convince (rather than demonize) the moderates who are skeptical of them. We'll see in a while if they learned that lesson from 2024.
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Really appreciate the 14 mentions of GDS and acknowledgment of the inspiration.
(The older but poorer cousin gets ahead of the younger, richer cousin for a change ;)
[0] https://usdigitalserviceorigins.org/timeline/
The reality is that the average american doesn't give a shit about the machines. They want better lives and they haven't gotten that for a long time. Talk to some old guy at a diner about why they were a Democratic voter and you won't hear "The Social Security Administation got my checks on time." You'll hear about the New Deal, wage increases, and how they can retire.
[0]https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2025/06/direct-fi...
My completely unfounded theory is that the West Wing broke the brains of an entire generation of center left leaning Americans. Led them to believe that being noble and earnest brings you electoral rewards, that you should break bread with your opposition, who are fundamentally reasonable people capable of compromise.
I think Trump 2.0 might have finally finished that mindset off but good lord did it take a long time.
I was agreeing with you completely until I hit this phrase.
What Democrats have you seen "breaking bread with" their opposition? Most Democratic politicians and pundits (not saying voters) spend most of their effort on demonizing those they disagree with, on intentionally imputing the worst motives for their every opinion. If you don't support the most maximal definitions of every ideal they have, you're a bigot. If you didn't vote for Harris, you're a monster who must love Trump. etc.
The West Wing Dems could actually bring themselves to hold their noses and cut a deal with their Republicans that gave each side something important to them. To be fair, both parties now consider that practice to be basically treason.
It's the parties that are killing us.
In peril? Sure, frequently.
But the USDS, and the work they started, goes on, even today.
Interestingly, the executive order which changed USDS's name seems to consider that work important: it tasks the renamed United States DOGE Service (which is separate from the DOGE temporary organization or the DOGE agency teams, created with separate charters in the same executive order) with:
> a Software Modernization Initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/esta...
Whatever else you might think about DOGE or that executive order, it's interesting to note that the government tech improvement goal of the original USDS appears to have been underlined/re-emphasized, rather than crossed out, in this case.
Copied from my adjacent comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44208596):
The example they set, and the systems and processes they put in place, are still alive.
In peril? Sure, frequently.
But the USDS, and the work they started, goes on, even today.
EDIT: It was a joint effort between the two!