worse is better list:please add

unix over multics
linux over minix, bsd, plan9, beos
x86 over risc
dc over a
java over smalltalk

http and c++ are good examples, but I don't know what the alternatives were

worse is better forces (evolutionary pressures/economic constraints that lead to local maximums because they are better in the short term):
compatibility
portability
time to market
familiarity (in UI and programming languages)

>unix over multics
Are you a 70-year old AT&T retiree? No? Then you don't know what the fuck you're talking about,

>linux over minix, bsd, plan9, beos
Hurr, toy operating systems are better than Linux. So edgyXD. FreeBSD on the desktop is a joke. Even the lead developer of PC-BSD is a Windows user.

>x86 over risc
RISC was designed to be written by humans. x86 was designed to be written by compilers. There's no reason for humans to write ASM anymore except to waste time. Even kernels are written in C.

>java over smalltalk
Smalltalk is shit. Steve Jobs wanted to write NeXT in Smalltalk just because Alan Kay gushed about it (Jobs didn't know shit about programming). After realizing the limitations they licensed Objective-C instead. Nothing useful has ever been written in Smalltalk.

>http and c++ are good examples, but I don't know what the alternatives were
http: s-expressions
c++: c

Now fuck off back to cat-v.