Strongly disagree with this sentiment. Our jobs are typically to write software in a way that minimizes risk and best ensures the success of the project.
How many software projects have you seen fail because it couldn't run fast enough or used too many resources? Personally, I've never seen it. I'm sure it exists, but I can't imagine it's a common occurrence. I've rewritten systems because they grew and needed perf upgrades to continue working, but this was always something the business knew, planned for and accepted as a strategy for success. The project may have been less successful if it had been written with performance in mind from the beginning.
With that in mind, I can't think of many things less appropriate to keep in your mind as a first class concern when building software than performance and optimization. Sure, as you gain experience in your software stack you'll naturally be able to optimize, but since it will possibly never be the reason your projects fail and presumably your job is to ensure success of some project, then it follows that you should prioritize other things strongly over optimization.
I see it all the time, applications that would be very usable and streamlined for users from a ui perspective are frustrating and painful to use because every action requires a multi second request. So the experience is mostly reduced to staring at progress spinners.
This is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Just because an app is slow doesn't mean Rust would've made it faster. It may just be slow because of a bad query or otherwise poor architecture, especially in web development. The commenter is asking what projects you've seen fail because the language itself hit a performance limit that couldn't be worked around.
this honestly sounds like you're describing the most successful software on the market. I can't think of many social media sites slower than facebook or instagram, or chat slower than slack or email clients slower than gmail.
I'm not so sure this "race to the bottom" is a characteristic I want to avoid. The most competitive markets in the world are always in first world countries or in countries quickly turning into a first world country. Take south korea for example. They had sweatshops maybe 70 years ago and now they arguably have the best healthcare in system in the world.
I'll take a fast food job for 40 hours any day of the week over most of the options in poor countries. Sure, nothing but the best, fulfilling jobs for everyone is ideal, but until I see that exist I'm not informed enough to know whether it's possible outside of someones political ideals.
It also depends on where the code is running. To put it simply; nobody cares how much RAM the server is using, but they do care if their clientside application isn't responsive. UI being performant and responsive should have priority over everything else.
How many software projects have you seen fail because it couldn't run fast enough or used too many resources? Personally, I've never seen it. I'm sure it exists, but I can't imagine it's a common occurrence. I've rewritten systems because they grew and needed perf upgrades to continue working, but this was always something the business knew, planned for and accepted as a strategy for success. The project may have been less successful if it had been written with performance in mind from the beginning.
With that in mind, I can't think of many things less appropriate to keep in your mind as a first class concern when building software than performance and optimization. Sure, as you gain experience in your software stack you'll naturally be able to optimize, but since it will possibly never be the reason your projects fail and presumably your job is to ensure success of some project, then it follows that you should prioritize other things strongly over optimization.