The cost of building droppped by 90% but the cost of maitaining is increased by 9000%
Next quarters problem
Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
331–340 of 744 posts
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#332No, it did not. Thanks for asking.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, writing a SaaS software is like an order, perhaps two orders of magnitude more effort than writing software that runs on a computer and does the thing you want. There's a ton of stuff that SaaS is used for now that's basically trivial and literally all the "engineering" effort is spent on ensuring vendor lock in and retaining control of the software so that you can force people to keep paying you.
We should also get a flurry of low-cost, decent-quality native local-first software, but I’m not seeing any.
Why? I don't want to bother making all the software that the AI wrote for me work on someone else's machine. The difference between software that solves my problem and that solves a problem many people have is also often like an order of magnitude of effort.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#334The cost of writing simple code has dropped 90%. If you can reduce a problem to a point where it can be solved by simple code you can get the rest of the solution very quickly. Reducing a problem to a point where it can be solved with simple code takes a lot of skill and experience and is generally still quite a time-consuming process.
Most code is simple, the fact that large complex systems are layers of simple code on top of itself, like garbage heaps at the dump, makes it complex. Sticking with the garbage analogy, the LLM is like upgrading from one shovel to an crew of 10 people with excavators to look for a lost Bitcoin hard drive. Your project is still going to fail, but it will fail faster with the 10 excavators.
And pollute the world. Really good analogy.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'm really curious on what your role is, and which industry are you in? I'm awed by these productivity gains others report, but I feel like AI helps in such a small part of my job (implementing specific changes as I direct). Agentic workflows for me results in bloated code, which is fine when I'm willing to hand over an subsystem to the agent, such as a frontend on a side project and have it vibe code the entire thin…
Senior Software Engineer. The system is a niche business software software for a specific industry. It doesn't do any fancy math, all straightforward business logic.
> Trying to get clean code erases all/most of my productivity gains, and doesn't spark joy. I find having a back-end-forth with an agent exhausting, probably because I have to build and discard multiple mental models of the proposed solution, since the approach can vary wildly between prompts
You probably work on something that requires very unique and creative solutions. I work on dumb business software. Claude Code is generally good at following existing code patterns. As far as back-and-forth with Claude Code being exhausting, I have few tips how how to minimize number or shots required to get good solution from CC: 1. Start by exploring relevant code by asking CC questions. 2. Then use Plan Mode for anything more than trivial change. Using Plan Mode is essential. You need to make sure you and CC are on the same page BEFORE it starts writing code 3. If you see CC making same mistake over and over, add instructions to your CLAUDE.md to avoid it in the future. This way your CC setup improves over time, like a coworker who learns over time.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#336I don’t know if it’s 90%, but I’m shipping in 2 days things that took 2-4 weeks before. Opus 4.5 in particular has been a profound shift. I’m not sure how software dev as a career survives this. I have nearly 0 reason to hire a developer for my company because I just write a spec and Claude does it in one shot. It’s honestly scary, and I hope my company doesn’t fail because as a developer I’m fucked. But… statistical…
Just out of curiosity, what software product were you making in two weeks before using AI? Or maybe I’m misunderstanding your use of shipping.
Shipping features, not entire products.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#337I don’t know if it’s 90%, but I’m shipping in 2 days things that took 2-4 weeks before. Opus 4.5 in particular has been a profound shift. I’m not sure how software dev as a career survives this. I have nearly 0 reason to hire a developer for my company because I just write a spec and Claude does it in one shot. It’s honestly scary, and I hope my company doesn’t fail because as a developer I’m fucked. But… statistical…
I'd love to hear what sort of software you are building.
This is my anon account so I prefer not to leave any identifying details. Niche solo-dev SaaS that makes $50k a month.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#338I love the hand drawn chart. Apparently "Open Source" was invented around 2005, which significantly reduced development cost, then AWS was invented in 2011 or so and made development even cheaper, but then, oh no, in 2018 "complexity" happened and development became harder!
AI drawn chart and AI written article
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm really curious on what your role is, and which industry are you in? I'm awed by these productivity gains others report, but I feel like AI helps in such a small part of my job (implementing specific changes as I direct). Agentic workflows for me results in bloated code, which is fine when I'm willing to hand over an subsystem to the agent, such as a frontend on a side project and have it vibe code the entire thin…
Senior Software Engineer. The system is a niche business software software for a specific industry. It doesn't do any fancy math, all straightforward business logic. > Trying to get clean code erases all/most of my productivity gains, and doesn't spark joy. I find having a back-end-forth with an agent exhausting, probably because I have to build and discard multiple mental models of the proposed solution, since the a…
Thank you for the actionable ideas. I'll experiment with closer supervision during the planning stage, hopefully finer-grained implementation details will reduce unnecessarily large refactors during review.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#340I strongly agree. It may be even more than 90%. For example yesterday I was able to use lovable (and Claude code web) on my phone to build out an almost 1:1 replacement (for my purposes) for an expensive subscription based app for working out: https://strengthquest.lovable.app/
This is simply unimaginable level of productivity— in one day on my phone, I can essentially build and replace expensive software. Unreal days we are living in.