On: Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?

[robocat]

And how do you find a solution that will last more than a few years, and also handle changes as they occur?

Software solutions require ongoing work: ongoing maintenance costs of a customised solution could easily be higher per year than 1 cheap FTE.

[dhruvkar → robocat]

That's definitely a question to be answered.

More than the # of hours involved, it's the error-prone nature of the work and the lag between when the data should be entered vs when it's actually entered.

These three factors -- hours saved, errors prevented, time lag avoided -- make me think that it's worth automating.

You're right, however, it's not clear cut it's the right way to go.