QA usually owns the automated tests. When a company mandates a level of automation, QA spends a part of their time growing the number and scope of the automated tests. Over time, maintenance of these tests can become expensive, and most of a QA teams time can be spent maintaining the existing automation while adding all new tests into the automation. This becomes a perpetual treadmill of building test automation that can take time and energy away from other valuable QA tasks such as design and specification review, functional testing, exploratory testing, interactive testing, etc. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place" - The Red Queen, Through the Looking Glass

A pattern of design commonly used and conceptually intuitive that is otherwise known to be ineffective, sub-optimal, or counter-productive to the goal.Examples include Spaghetti Code, the Testing Ice Cream Cone, Code Coverage Mandates, Unfalsifiable Test, Skip The Test, and Watchmen Tests

Testing work that looks impressive, generates artifacts, and fulfills metrics while providing little value. Performative Testing is testing effort devoted to tasks make it appear as if QA is doing work while often ticking off mandated checkboxes.End-to-End test automation is an example. There is often an outsized focused on E2E tests as they look impressive visually, yet they are expensive to write and maintain while finding very few real bugs. Meanwhile Functional and Exploratory ("manual") testing efforts provide high value but are difficult to quantify and therefore can be neglected or deprioritized. "Looks busy. Feels productive. Delivers nothing" - Rahul Parwal