There are two stakeholders who benefit from it: lazy software designers and users who avoid responsibility because there's no one person accountable for the final product. No one gets the blame when it fails. When money's on the table, and accountability's on the table, people get smarter. Good development is about individuals who are competent and can be held accountable.

That's an extremely interesting question. When you crowdsource or allow anonymity on the Internet, people act as a mob. They get mean. Does it happen inside enterprises? Sure. I've seen a degree of rudeness or cynicism that might not have happened if there were a less mob-like quality to the structure of the enterprise. I can't say I have a solution, but to mitigate it, you have to be aware of it. Occasionally, there's the person who might have something important to say who won't say it unless they're anonymous, like a whistle-blower. But anonymity should be an extraordinarily unusual option. It shouldn't be the standard.