Most AI
is SaaS, so in a way this whole argument is circular. It's just one SaaS product gobbling up some other ones.
That said, "White Bread" is a fun book about the enshittification (not using that word lightly) of bread: https://biblioreads.eu.org/book/show/13122087-white-bread
A lot of what the article describes about SaaS is also in the book: the convenience, the standardization, the offloading of time, etc. The article doesn't really talk about the rot that has been going on in the SaaS realm though while the parallels in "White Bread" do.
The article talks about the high standards of bread making in the 12th century and then fast-forwards to the 1960s with a brief stop in 1928 to celebrate slicing tech. It leaves out the dangerous working conditions, the poisonous additives used to save money on bread and the cut-throat competition between U.S. bread companies that spurred those things on. Even ad campaigns that (much like this article) belittled baking bread yourself. Those same things are going on in the SaaS industry, but with software instead of food.
So why do people buy their bread and use SaaS?
> because it was easier, because it was consistent, and because the alternative cost time and attention they’d rather have spent elsewhere.
And just look at where we're spending that time and attention. Maybe it's different for businesses, but consumers are more miserable than ever because they rent garbage and eat bread where high-fructose-corn-syrup is the third ingredient.
> I think the SaaS companies that survive will be the ones that understand they sell convenience and accountability.
I think we've seen, whether that's with our phones (now basically a SaaS platform), our news, our health care, or our entertainment that convenience is enough. Accountability still counts for some b2b SaaS platforms, but the reason why the largest ones have so many lawyers is to get out of that accountability every time they can. And they do.
So yeah I guess I'm depressed that the article is mostly right. I think where it diverges though is that AI has helped me bake a lot more of my own software. It has put me in a place where I spend more time and attention on quality deliverables than I have before. It's too bad SaaS in its current form won't die, the same way it's sad that people are so caught up in their virtual lives that they won't bake a little of their own bread, especially when there's a convenient machine sitting on their counter ready to go.