We build only to rebuild. Too often, we rebuild not to add visitor-requested features or increase usability, but merely to keep up with browsers and devices that seem determined to stay one budget-busting jump ahead of our planning and development cycles or to implement a new look and feel without improving the architecture or the user experience.
Either we resort to costly, time consuming measures to force our sites to look and behave the same way in all browsers or we deny access and functionality to a small but significant percentage of potential customers.
We're so used to this experience that we consider it normative—the price of doing business on the web. It's a price we can no longer afford. The competitive landscape is forcing us to be more nimble, shorten our development cycles and do more with less resources.