The Value of software is going down, this much is clear to most people. It will continue to demand proper engineering for its creation and operation. But AI will lead to an increase of unique one-of-a-kind systems created by very small teams. And the world will increasingly rely on these unique systems.

SaaS companies need to start reading the writting on the wall, their massive valuations enjoyed when software was harder to create will need to be justified.

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falloutx 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Everyone says that but I don't see anyone cooking up the next photoshop and selling it at $3/month. Why are we not seeing more options of every tool? Most Saas companies are sales companies at their core rather than software companies. And those sales people are so good that they can sell a todo list for millions.

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coliveira 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In the case of Photoshop it is the software itself that is becoming useless. In a few years, using photoshop will be viewed the same as developing physical film, a process from a by-gone era that is still possible, but impractical.

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gmueckl 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is an extremely bold claim and I think that it completely overlooks how Photoshop is used by professionals in practice. Professional users want extremely fine grained and precise control over their tools to achieve the specific results that they want. AI "image editing" is incapable of providing anything remotely similar.

	▲	coliveira 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, "professional users" need this. The problem is that the group of professional users who need that will shrink really fast in the next few years.

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kulor 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I've recently re-instated a Photoshop subscription and its now part of my core AI generated asset workflow. AI is fantastic at art direction but it needs minor adjustments to make it production ready. E.g putting real screenshots in with correct placement, smoothing, editing out artefacts etc. I can't imagine the lengths I'd have to go to to instruct an LLM to do these tasks with words.

	▲	skissane 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		How much of what you do with Photoshop could be done with open source tools instead (GIMP, ImageMagick, etc), versus how much do you really need Photoshop for? One technique I’ve used for cleaning up AI-generated images, was a Python script driving ImageMagick-and an LLM helped write the Python script (although it took a few iterations, because the LLM’s first attempt didn’t actually work)
	▲	esafak 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Some of the LLM crowd is living in lala land.

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marcus_holmes 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I don't see anyone cooking up the next photoshop and selling it at $3/month.

That's not the situation we're talking about though. It's someone saying "hmm, I need to edit this picture. Can I get ChatGPT to do it?" where 3 years ago they would have had to buy Photoshop and learn how to use it.

Similarly, if they need a tool to batch-convert a thousand images, they're getting an LLM to construct the specific tool they need in a couple of hours and then running that, rather than buying a software product that can do it.

You don't need a whole dev team to build a one-off tool for a specific job, which is probably 90% of the demand for those software products. LLMs are becoming the general-purpose tool for a lot of use cases.

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bobsmooth 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>they're getting an LLM to construct the specific tool they need in a couple of hours and then running that

This is something I really hope takes off for the common person. ChatGPT is perfect for bespoke little programs that do one thing and can be discarded after use.

	▲	username223 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> bespoke little programs that do one thing and can be discarded after use. That's my best-case scenario as well: LLMs are scripting languages for a broader audience. They just barely automate busywork, but are not a reliable foundation.

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CreepGin 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Everyone says that but I don't see anyone cooking up the next photoshop and selling it at $3/month.

Yup, same reason you can't throw manpower at a software project and expect a proportional outcome (Brooks's Law). AI amplifies what's already there; it doesn't conjure taste or product vision out of thin air.

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bandrami 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Where is the output?" remains the giant elephant in the AI room. You can tell because people get mad when you ask that.

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walkersnice 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Everyone says that but I don't see anyone cooking up the next photoshop and selling it at $3/month. Why are we not seeing more options of every tool?

I expect the markets are reflecting that soon there will be more competition.

It'll take time, and as LLMs improve, it'll take even less time.

	▲	skydhash 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I expect the markets are reflecting that soon there will be more competition. > It'll take time, and as LLMs improve, it'll take even less time. People have written great software in ed(1). We have tools like uxn[0] written on potato computers and billions and years later, we still have to hope for AI output. [0]: https://100r.co/site/uxn.html

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nonethewiser 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I dont actually think it changes the economics of software as a service much. What's true for the small scale is true for the large scale. Sure, it's easier to build your own HR platform now but it's also easier to write and maintain it at scale with all your domain knowledge, legal infrastructure, etc. This seems true for inventory management, document signing, ecommerce, expensing, crm, training, accounting, etc. Why wouldn't the offerings from services providers get better and cheaper (relatively)?

The stuff you do in-house is probably still going to tied deeply to your internal processes. Admin dashboards, special workflows integrating with different systems, etc.

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SimianSci 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Consider it in the realm of supply and demand. The economics of software will change simply because the tool enables more software to be written. In a way, the barrier of entry into the space of selling software has lowered. It hasnt vanished, but there will be many more entrants and offerings as a result, thus more competition for the existing SaaS companies.

I don't see how the economics of SaaS will remain the same when their value is formed of capital and labor expended, both of which require less now, so please explain how this doesn't lead to an increase in supply and a downward pressure on value?

	▲	esafak 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		People could simply expect more of the software.

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themafia 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> this much is clear to most people.

There are more computers now than there ever have been. More people in more parts of the world have them than ever before. If you have this perspective you may just be locked in a first-world corporate nightmare that has stolen from you all vision and imagination.

	▲	KellyCriterion 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		TRUE! Actually the world around is controlled already by computers ~ chips: Your car, your dishwasher, your metro, your holidayjettravel etc. And it becomes "worse": Billions and billions of chips ~ compusters are produced every year, the number is increasing. Billions of people will get access to the stuff that was around for us "since ever" for the first time in their whole life.
	▲	SimianSci 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Perhaps the it would be better described as "commodification" of software, which still gets my point across. Software is absolutely more ubiquitous than ever before, this I can agree upon. But now we have the tools to create more of it, and therefore software is less valuable simply as it is less rare. I dont mean to say that software is valueless, but rather that it enjoyed inflated value as the amount of capital and effort required to build a software product was much greater.