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What web businesses will continue to make money post AI?

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Re: What web businesses will continue to make money post AI?

#21

Post by RamblingCTO »

cyanydeez wrote: post #16
dudewhocodes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it the same way. Why would we rebuild a custom solution when $10 per user has it all? SaaS was always about the service part and works better when other companies use the same tool. Unique software specific to business needs will get more interesting though.

Usually its cause the market movers force anyone not moving towards the billionaire VC businness has to raise their cost. This is usually masked by vertical integrate and buyout of competition. So either your servicd raises prces to avoid buyout or it gets bought.

This is the lifecycle of SaaS tho. It opens up opportunities for competitors to launch and build something more nieche, which is good for customers. And then it repeats

Re: What web businesses will continue to make money post AI?

#22

Post by rithdmc »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #17

All of the major SaaS companies. No company wants to maintain a vibe coded in house SaaS product anymore than they wanted to maintain a Microsoft Access app. AI is a “sustaining innovation” for existing companies.

HackerNews has been saying, for years, that an idea isn't worth anything. Even before AI, there were ten people who could for every person who did release a SaaS side project or business.

The value is in being able to sell it, being able to offset responsibility, all that ancillary stuff, which AI can't do at the moment.

Re: What web businesses will continue to make money post AI?

#24

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

austin-cheney wrote: post #23

Not many. The future is self-hosted applications and organization owned/retained data.

Absolutely no company to the first approximation wants to host their own apps and manage updates for a couple dosen different SaaS apps (the industry average).

Re: What web businesses will continue to make money post AI?

#25

Post by austin-cheney »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #24
austin-cheney wrote: post #23

Not many. The future is self-hosted applications and organization owned/retained data.

Absolutely no company to the first approximation wants to host their own apps and manage updates for a couple dosen different SaaS apps (the industry average).

At every step in the cyclical evolution of software as a business people have said the exact same thing: nobody is going to stop doing X for Y. This is always proven wrong even as people continue to advocate for X over Y as Y fully replaces X. Businesses will evaluate this in consideration of expenses and liabilities. Once the Y becomes cheaper than X then X is only retained for emotional reasons.

Re: What web businesses will continue to make money post AI?

#26

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

austin-cheney wrote: post #25
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely no company to the first approximation wants to host their own apps and manage updates for a couple dosen different SaaS apps (the industry average).

At every step in the cyclical evolution of software as a business people have said the exact same thing: nobody is going to stop doing X for Y . This is always proven wrong even as people continue to advocate for X over Y as Y fully replaces X. Businesses will evaluate this in consideration of expenses and liabilities. Once the Y becomes cheaper than X then X is only retained for emotional reasons.

We’ve already been through this cycle before SaaS. Why would every company want to go back to the days where you had to have an IT department to manage your apps?

Real businesses aren’t going to over optimize on something that cost $10 per seat.

If it’s “always proven wrong “, is this going to be “The year of Linux on the Desktop”? Is “the iPad going to fail because it doesn’t run Flash?”? Are we going to start browsing the internet on our TVs using set top boxes to get on the “Information Super highway”?

Oh yeah and let’s not forget that the iPod had “less space than the Nomad and no wireless” and was “lame”.

Or don’t forget that Dropbox was going to fail because “For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.”

I can go on about Dvorak’s comment in 1984 “The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse'. There is no evidence that people want to use these things”

Or Michael Dell’s infamous “Apple should just shut down the company and give th money back to shareholders”

Re: What web businesses will continue to make money post AI?

#27

Post by austin-cheney »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #26
austin-cheney wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At every step in the cyclical evolution of software as a business people have said the exact same thing: nobody is going to stop doing X for Y . This is always proven wrong even as people continue to advocate for X over Y as Y fully replaces X. Businesses will evaluate this in consideration of expenses and liabilities. Once the Y becomes cheaper than X then X is only retained for emotional reasons.

We’ve already been through this cycle before SaaS. Why would every company want to go back to the days where you had to have an IT department to manage your apps? Real businesses aren’t going to over optimize on something that cost $10 per seat. If it’s “always proven wrong “, is this going to be “The year of Linux on the Desktop”? Is “the iPad going to fail because it doesn’t run Flash?”? Are we going to start brows…

Remember that data/content is king as the paradigm of business on the web? Its where we have been since the late 90s. Its the advertising economy. Both business and individual consumers don't want to pay for it any more. Self-hosted applications with a cloud premium upgrade are the new business model. For example why bother with all the invasive nonsense of Facebook if a person can self-host something that works better and share it with their real life contacts at their discretion?

The IPod won because it had the Apple app store. People don't need the app store to acquire high quality content any more and they certainly don't want their content locked into the limitations of leased access to some distribution model.

Re: What web businesses will continue to make money post AI?

#28

Post by cyanydeez »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #21
cyanydeez wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually its cause the market movers force anyone not moving towards the billionaire VC businness has to raise their cost. This is usually masked by vertical integrate and buyout of competition. So either your servicd raises prces to avoid buyout or it gets bought.

This is the lifecycle of SaaS tho. It opens up opportunities for competitors to launch and build something more nieche, which is good for customers. And then it repeats

Yeah, it repeats until fascism shows up and decides the billionaire class and nepo babies is all "we" need.

Re: What web businesses will continue to make money post AI?

#29

Post by codegeek »

Most B2B SAAS is not going to go to zero just because of AI. B2B Customers don't want to build their own tools generally unless it is their core business. Before AI, customers used to hire developers/vendors to solve a problem. After AI, customers will continue to do the same. They may ask about doing things with AI, sure.

Source: I sell a complex B2B SAAS and even though customers are open to learning more about using AI and are curious, I never had a customer ask so far "Hey so now this AI thing is out, do I really need to you the $xx,xxxx/Year because I can build this in a weekend now, right?". The software is just 1 thing. Customers want stability, support, maintenance, someone to call if shit breaks and if a SAAS vendor does a decent job at it, they won't leave.

If anything, customers who are AI adaptors are asking to collaborate with their existing vendors if possible.

Re: What web businesses will continue to make money post AI?

#30

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

austin-cheney wrote: post #27
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve already been through this cycle before SaaS. Why would every company want to go back to the days where you had to have an IT department to manage your apps? Real businesses aren’t going to over optimize on something that cost $10 per seat. If it’s “always proven wrong “, is this going to be “The year of Linux on the Desktop”? Is “the iPad going to fail because it doesn’t run Flash?”? Are we going to start brows…

Remember that data/content is king as the paradigm of business on the web? Its where we have been since the late 90s. Its the advertising economy. Both business and individual consumers don't want to pay for it any more. Self-hosted applications with a cloud premium upgrade are the new business model. For example why bother with all the invasive nonsense of Facebook if a person can self-host something that works bett…

Right, businesses don’t want to pay $10/seat for SaaS but they want to create server rooms in their offices and hire a bunch of IT people to support it?

> Self-hosted applications with a cloud premium upgrade are the new business model

That’s not happening for any company. Where pray tell are these companies “self hosting” and supporting their business that they are getting a better deal than their per seat licensing cost? Who is supporting their systems?

> For example why bother with all the invasive nonsense of Facebook if a person can self-host something that works better and share it with their real life contacts at their discretion?

So everyone is going to be a server admin and host software and set up their NAT correctly so they can access it via their home internet when their on their phones using their 30 Mpbd upload speeds from their cable modem?

Are people going to start running their own servers now?

> The IPod won because it had the Apple app store

That’s also not true. The iPod was released in 2001, the iTunes Music Store wasn’t released until 2003. As late as 2007 Steve Jobs said that only 5% of music on iPods came from iTunes in his famous “Thoughts on Music”

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