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Ask HN: Isn't all SaaS just wrappers?

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Re: Ask HN: Isn't all SaaS just wrappers?

#11

Post by bognition »

You used to be able to slap a UI on a DB and call it a day. When Salesforce as launched having a unified DB for all sales information with a UI for controls and reporting was revolutionary!

Today the world is very different. You need to do more than provide a system of record, you have to build a product that makes it easier for customers to accomplish some task.

Re: Ask HN: Isn't all SaaS just wrappers?

#12

Post by sillysaurusx »

JohnMakin wrote: post #8

> I just don't understand why people seem so upset about these new companies being GPT wrappers. I mean there's a big difference between varying degrees of what a "wrapper" is - the issue I personally have are applications/SaaS that make absolutely wild claims about what it can do by integrating AI and the application backend is a stupidly thin wrapper around GPT that just sends the prompt and returns the result. If…

A business doesn't need to be innovative or groundbreaking to make money.

Re: Ask HN: Isn't all SaaS just wrappers?

#14

Post by todd3834 »

Sure, you can filter out some of the criticism as just haters. However, some of it might be deserved. It really depends on what the product is doing. Since Chat GPT is a very useful consumer facing product, any kind of chat bot built on top might not add a ton of value. Some companies are using an LLM such as GPT in very creative ways where you couldn’t get 80% of the value by just using the chat interface. You probably don’t see much hate in those cases.

Re: Ask HN: Isn't all SaaS just wrappers?

#15

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

candiddevmike wrote: post #7

Aren't all programs just wrappers around kernel calls?

The important bits of most applications aren't in syscalls; the important bits of a SaaS app might well be a program it wraps. Or not, of course; sometimes an easy UI is the important bit.

Re: Ask HN: Isn't all SaaS just wrappers?

#16

Post by JohnMakin »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #12
JohnMakin wrote: post #8

> I just don't understand why people seem so upset about these new companies being GPT wrappers. I mean there's a big difference between varying degrees of what a "wrapper" is - the issue I personally have are applications/SaaS that make absolutely wild claims about what it can do by integrating AI and the application backend is a stupidly thin wrapper around GPT that just sends the prompt and returns the result. If…

A business doesn't need to be innovative or groundbreaking to make money.

So which GPT wrappers are profitable?

Re: Ask HN: Isn't all SaaS just wrappers?

#18

Post by leros »

bognition wrote: post #11

You used to be able to slap a UI on a DB and call it a day. When Salesforce as launched having a unified DB for all sales information with a UI for controls and reporting was revolutionary! Today the world is very different. You need to do more than provide a system of record, you have to build a product that makes it easier for customers to accomplish some task.

There are still UIs on top of a DB. I've consulted for several fast-growing startups that import data from some antiquated system, report on it in different ways, and their UIs are just massive data tables. In many spaces, that's innovative. Keep in mind, there are still industries that haven't really been tech-enabled and are 20+ years behind.
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