The early Bitcoin moment you described captures a truth about innovation that people often forget The strongest adoption starts from wonder not utility Free money to an eleven year old is wonder The utility and the ideology came later after the bills arrived in the mail That spark is priceless and it is the difference between someone who tries something and someone who becomes part of it for life

Your comment about post release hotfixes hits on a bigger idea In programming the high of launch is real but the real work is the messy aftermath The fact that thirty bugs disappeared in a week tells me that you care enough to keep the ship moving instead of standing on deck celebrating The release is not the end It is the point where reality starts negotiating with your code

Motivation in programming is a strange beast It rarely comes just from trying to make something perfect It comes from two places Either you are personally driven by a vision or the problem is burning a hole in someone else's day and you feel responsible enough to fix it The steak metaphor is perfect because shipping too late can kill momentum and shipping too early can create chaos The art lies in knowing when it is cooked enough to survive the plate