> The pessimistic one is that most of what needed building gets built, and the remaining work fits in fewer hands.

I don't think that's true, mainly because if it were true it would have happened a long time ago. We will never settle on one version of a thing (let it be messaging, recipes, notes, image galleries, etc...). New variants emerge over time, the only thing AI does is accelerate this.

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pixl97 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There are countless games and applications in the app stores these days. Almost all of them are money losing ventures. The vast majority of these variants are going to go extinct and earn negative revenue for its creator. The big problem comes in when creators stop running into any variants that can earn them a living at all.

>We will never settle on one version of a thing

This depends on how well a monopoly can fit into the equation.

>We will never settle on one version of a thing (recipes)

Here is an example of missing the whole elephant because you're looking to close. While the number of recipes are booming, the number of food distribution companies has collapsed into just a few mega corporations. And those corps are massively controlling the prices all of us must pay.

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fragmede 5 hours ago | parent [-]

You can't make money playing a guitar and warbling into a microphone anymore either. Hasn't stopped my local bar from hosting local musicians who are in it for the craft.

	▲	CodingJeebus 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think that's really an apt comparison. Most software people who are in it purely for the craft are deep in open source, and open source doesn't necessarily build the most user-friendly tooling. If it did, you'd see apps like GIMP seriously challenging Adobe, etc. So much of the software layer built for enterprise and consumers relied on VC. I can only speak for myself, but I'd be willing to bet that 95+% of developers I've worked with would not build user-facing software for free. We are all in it for the money.

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fangorn 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Let's hope you're right, but you might be underestimating the "$200 per month (robo)engineer can only do it like this, therefore this is the way to do it" factor.