The rise of industrial software

Tldr; initially I thought we might be onto something, but now, I don't see much of a revolution.

I won't put intention into the text because I did not check any other posts from the same guy.

That said, I think this revolution is not revolutionary yet. Not sure if it will be, but maybe?

What is happening os that companies are going back to "normal" number of people in software development. Before it was because of adoption to custom software, later because of labour shortage, then we had a boom because people caught up into it as a viable career but then it started scaling down again because one developer can (technically) do more with AI.

There are huge red flags with "fully automated" software development that are not being fixed but for those outside of the expertise area, doesn't seem relevant. With newer restrictions related to cost and hardware, AI will be even a worse option unless there is some sort of magic that fixes everything related to how it does code.

The economy (all around the world) is bonkers right now. Honestly, I saw some Jr Devs earning 6 fig salaries (in USD) and doing less than what me and my friends did when we were Jr. There is inflation and all, but the numbers does not seem to add.

Part of it all is a re- normalisation but part of it is certainly a lack of understanding of software and/or// engineering.

Current tools, and I include even those kiro, anti-gravity and whatever, do not solve my problems, just make my work faster. Easier to look for code, find data and read through blocks of code I don't see in a while. Writing code not so much better. If it is simple and easy it certainly can do, but for anything more complex it seems that it is faster and more reliable to do myself (and probably cheaper)

Personally I think AI is going to turn software into a cottage industry, it will make custom software something the individual can afford. AI is a very long ways off from being able to allow the average person to create the software they want unless they are willing to put a great deal of time into it, but it is almost good enough that the programmer can take the average person's idea and execute it at an affordable price. Probably only a year or two from when a capable programmer will be able to offer any small buisness a completely customized POS setup for what the cost of a canned industrial offering today; I will design your website and build you a POS system tailored to your needs and completely integrated with the website, and for a little more I can throw in the accounting and tax software. A bright dishwasher realizing they can make things work better for their employer might be the next billionaire revolutionizing commerce and the small buisness.

I have some programming ability and a lot of ideas but would happily hire someone to realize those ideas for me. The idea I have put the most time into, took me the better part of a year to sort out all the details of even with the help of AI, most programmers could have probably done it in a night and with AI could write the software in a few nights. I would have my software for an affordable price and they could stick it in their personal store so other could buy it. If I am productive with it and show its utility, they will sell more copies of it so they have an incentive to work with people like me and help me realize my ideas.

Programming is going to become a service instead of an industry, the craft of programming will be for sale instead of software.

If that is true we will live in a funny world when you will loose all your money because you where running some outdated, riddled with holes software written by LLM running on some old router old cheap camera. Or some software will stop working after an update because some fix was written by LLM and nobody checked that nor tested. Or they will 3 outages of big internet services in 2 months.

Oh wait. It is already a thing.

Sure, that is still a ways off, but being able to hire a programmer to meet my personal modest software needs is almost there. Also, the needs of any company that required a hundred people and millions of dollars is very different from the needs of a small restaurant or the like; anyone with enough ambition to run a small restaurant can manage the accounting and taxes for that restaurant, the same can not be said for the sort of buisness you are describing. You are comparing an apple to an orange orchard.

Edit: Just noticed I said "any buisness", that was supposed to be "any small buisness." Edited the original post as well.

But I think the important part of this is the reach that the Industrial Revolution had. Consumer facing software, or the endusers who were able to "benefit" from the Industrial Revolution, and individual needs for all of these mass produced goods.

The important thing is that goods =/= software. I, as an end user, of software rarely need specialized software. I dont need an entire app generated on the spot to split the bill and remember the difference if I have the calculator.

So, yes, we are industrializing software, but this reach that people talk about (I believe) will be severely limited.