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The question is not whether you can or can't, but whether it is still worth it long term: - There is a moat of doing so (i.e. will people actually pay for your

by akra 1y ago

The question is not whether you can or can't, but whether it is still worth it long term: - There is a moat of doing so (i.e. will people actually pay for your SaaS knowing that they could do it too via AI) and.. - How many large scale ideas do you need post AI? Many SaaS products are subscription based and loaded with features you don't need. Most people would prefer a simple product that just does what they need without the ongoing costs. There will be more software. The question is who accrues the economic value of this additional software - the SWE/tech industry (incumbent), the AI industry (disruptor?) and/or the consumer. For the SWE's/tech workers it probably isn't what they envisioned when they started/studied for this industry.

satyrun 1y ago
It seems obvious to me it is the consumer who will benefit most. I had been thinking of buying an $80 license for a piece of software but ended up knocking off a version in Claude Code over a weekend. It is not even close to something commercial grade that I could sell as a competitor but it is good enough for me to not spend $80 on the license. The huge upside is that I can customize the software in any way I like. I don't care that it isn't maintainable either. Making a new version in ChagGPT5 is going to be my first project. Just like a few hours ago I was thinking how I would like to customize the fitness/calorie tracking app I use. There are so many features I like that would be tightly coupled to my own situation and not a mass market product. This to me seems obvious of what the future of software looks like for everything but mission critical software.
- throw234234234 1y ago
  This has a lot of future implications for employment in tech of course, architecture/design decisions, etc. Why would a non-tech company use a SaaS when it just AI up something and have 1-2 engineers on the build accountable? Its a lot cheaper and amortisable over many products saving some companies millions. Not just tech implementors but sales staff would be disrupted. Especially when the SaaS is implementing a standard or requires significant customisation anyway. Buy vs build, product vs implementation, it should all change soon - the silver lining in all of this.

by akra 1y ago

satyrun 1y ago

It seems obvious to me it is the consumer who will benefit most. I had been thinking of buying an $80 license for a piece of software but ended up knocking off a version in Claude Code over a weekend. It is not even close to something commercial grade that I could sell as a competitor but it is good enough for me to not spend $80 on the license. The huge upside is that I can customize the software in any way I like. I don't care that it isn't maintainable either. Making a new version in ChagGPT5 is going to be my first project. Just like a few hours ago I was thinking how I would like to customize the fitness/calorie tracking app I use. There are so many features I like that would be tightly coupled to my own situation and not a mass market product. This to me seems obvious of what the future of software looks like for everything but mission critical software.

throw234234234 1y ago
This has a lot of future implications for employment in tech of course, architecture/design decisions, etc. Why would a non-tech company use a SaaS when it just AI up something and have 1-2 engineers on the build accountable? Its a lot cheaper and amortisable over many products saving some companies millions. Not just tech implementors but sales staff would be disrupted. Especially when the SaaS is implementing a standard or requires significant customisation anyway. Buy vs build, product vs implementation, it should all change soon - the silver lining in all of this.