They created other kinds of despair.
A year ago I would've told my boss “can't be done” about my work today. I'd tell him to get me the right person to talk to (our partner, not an alien) who could give me some insight into what the hell I'm supposed to be doing to consume their API. Or to at least explain why it is that this can't be done.
Nowadays, I spent a couple of weeks reverse engineering their terrible ideas. Yeah, it worked. But it's a complete waste of my time, and tokens, energy, chips and RAM. And worst of all, it will lead to a terrible design.
That will work, but will eventually colapse under its own weight, as we use our increased power to increase our sloppiness and take it a little further. Because we can manage it. For now.