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Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
281–290 of 744 posts
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#282Had the cost of building custom software dropped 90%, we would be seeing a flurry of low-cost, decent-quality SaaS offering all over the marketplace, possibly undercutting some established players. From where I sit, right now, this does not seem to be the case. This is as if writing down the code is not the biggest problem, or the biggest time sink, of building software.
LLMs, long term, have killed most SaaS. Most SaaS used to be killed by bespoke software engineers that would build some custom thing, and it was integrated perfectly into the legacy system. Then all those people decided to be managers and go on "i dont care" autopilot mode and hired a bunch of teens that still do care, to some extent. But those teens suck at it, and the old guys just don't really care anymore. Now wi…
Nobody is replacing Jira or Splunk with anything coming out of an LLM.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#283Had the cost of building custom software dropped 90%, we would be seeing a flurry of low-cost, decent-quality SaaS offering all over the marketplace, possibly undercutting some established players. From where I sit, right now, this does not seem to be the case. This is as if writing down the code is not the biggest problem, or the biggest time sink, of building software.
This is assuming the marketplace works perfectly... Which is an incorrect assumption. Reality is that the marketplace is highly controlled by algorithms. New platforms will struggle to get exposure... No exposure, no credibility, no word of mouth, no users, catch 22... You think the big players will allow small SaaS projects to gain traction on their platforms? Have you seen how centralized the Internet is these days…
"Everything is controlled by algorithms" doesnt make any sense - its like saying everything is subject to entropy - well sure but also what?
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#284I think the whole software industry has tried to obscure the fact that most companies who hire software engineers are writing exactly the same code as every other company. How many people here have written the same goddamn webapp at the last 3 companies they've been to? Anyone ever wonder why nobody just publishes blueprints to software and licenses that blueprint to a single engineer to customize? Because there's a lot less money in doing that, versus selling a lot more software add-ons/SaaS/etc.
There is no value-add to hiring software engineers to build basic apps. That's what AI will be good for: repeating what has already been written and published to the web somewhere. The commoditized software that we shouldn't have been paying to write to begin with.
But AI won't help you with all the rest of the cost. The maintenance, which is 80% of your cost anyway. The infrastructure, monitoring, logging, metrics, VCS hosting, security scanning, QA, product manager, designer, data scientist, sales/marketing, customer support. All of that is part of the cost of building and running the software. The software engineers that churn out the initial app is a smaller cost than it seems. And we're still gonna need skilled engineers to use the AI, because AI is an idiot savant.
Personally I think 50% cost reduction in human engineers is the best you can expect. That's not nothing, but that's probably like a 10% savings on total revenue expenditure.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#285Can someone help me out how to get started in this kind of coding setup?
I haven't written production code for the last 8 years, but has prior development experience for about 17 years (ranging from C++, full stack, .NET, PHP and bunch of other stuff).
I used AI at personal level, and know the basics. Used Claude/Github to me help fix and write some pieces of the code in languages I wasn't familiar with. But it seems like people talking and deploying large real world projects in short-"er" amount of time. An old colleague of mine whom I trust mentioned his startup is developing code 3x faster than we used to develop software.
Is there resource that explains the current best practices (presumably it's all new)? Where do I even start?
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#286Had the cost of building custom software dropped 90%, we would be seeing a flurry of low-cost, decent-quality SaaS offering all over the marketplace, possibly undercutting some established players. From where I sit, right now, this does not seem to be the case. This is as if writing down the code is not the biggest problem, or the biggest time sink, of building software.
LLMs, long term, have killed most SaaS. Most SaaS used to be killed by bespoke software engineers that would build some custom thing, and it was integrated perfectly into the legacy system. Then all those people decided to be managers and go on "i dont care" autopilot mode and hired a bunch of teens that still do care, to some extent. But those teens suck at it, and the old guys just don't really care anymore. Now wi…
Yeahh, right, I'm not sure splunk is that simple.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is great. Asking questions of library code is a big pattern of mine too. Here's an example I saw on twitter. Asking an LLM to document a protocol from the codebase: https://ampcode.com/threads/T-f02e59f8-e474-493d-9558-11fddf... Do you think you will be able to capture any of this extra value? I think I'm faster at coding, but the overall corporate project timeline feels about the same. I feel more relaxed and c…
For me, as a remote developer, it means I'm able to finish my work in 1 hour instead of 8 hours. So I'm able to capture "extra value" in the form of time. In our team everyone uses GitHub Copilot and I use Claude Code. My teammates' productivity increased slightly but my productivity increased a lot. This is because 1. Claude Code is just a better coding agent 2. I invested time to get good at agentic coding. Eventua…
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Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is assuming the marketplace works perfectly... Which is an incorrect assumption. Reality is that the marketplace is highly controlled by algorithms. New platforms will struggle to get exposure... No exposure, no credibility, no word of mouth, no users, catch 22... You think the big players will allow small SaaS projects to gain traction on their platforms? Have you seen how centralized the Internet is these days…
"Everything is controlled by algorithms" doesnt make any sense - its like saying everything is subject to entropy - well sure but also what?
It's not the same because who controls the algorithms matters here. The algorithms work for some entities and against other entities. They are not neutral at all. They are aligned through shared monetary incentives, so well aligned that they would probably be less aligned if it was a literal conspiracy.
TBH. I'm kind of shocked I still have to explain this. When you get on the wrong side of the algorithms you will understand, you will understand viscerally. And I do mean 'when' not 'if'.
Maybe the algorithms have been working for you so far and you're not feeling them but just give it a few years. Unfortunately, once you understand, you won't have a voice anymore and those still in the game won't have enough empathy to help you.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#289The cost of building the first version of FB has dropped 90%
The cost of building the next FB stays the same
More sophisticated tools mean more refined products.
If an easier and cheaper method for working carbon fiber becomes broadly available, it won't mean you get less money; it means you'll now be cramming carbon fiber in the silverware, in the shoes, in baby strollers, EVERYWHERE. The cost of a carbon fiber bike will drop 90%, but teams will be doing a LOT more.
You could say the cost per line of code has dropped 90%, but the number of lines of code written will 100x.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most brilliant programmer I know is me three years ago. I look at code I wrote and I'm literally wondering "how did I figure out how to do that -- that makes no sense, but exactly what is needed!"
How can I learn this skill? Past Me is usually just this idiot who made work for Present Me.
Turns out, that is also past me. In fact, often the incredible code that brilliant me wrote, which I don't understand now, is also the code that reckless me wrote that I now need to fix/add to -- and I have no idea where to start.