[vogonj]

"This is easy to say as someone who has never managed a product, but I feel silent self-update is table stakes for consumer-facing products at this point."

yes, but no. saying that silent self-update is table stakes is missing the point: table stakes from your users' perspective is "shipping software that doesn't need to be consciously maintained."

whether you ship rarely and get the bugs out before you do, or ship frequently but have automatic upgrades that don't break things, doesn't matter.