As someone who’s building a GPU-powered Terminal App, the return to a CLI-first experience makes me giggle so hard. The times have changed but only in our memory perhaps! What is old is now new, etc. etc. etc.
I liked this quote but wanted to adjust it a bit:
> “New tools will be created with AI that do new things.”
to:
> “New tools will be created with AI that do old things in new ways.
The gutenberg press enabled writing and publishing (and copy-pasta-ing) at a greater scale. The typewriter did the same and then computer and then the internet and now AI.
Every major leap seems to follow the same pattern:
1. Reduce the cost of reproduction
2. Expand who can produce content
3. Trigger a crisis among existing gatekeepers (church, state, publishers, media companies)
4. Restructure power — those who control information lose monopoly
These are amazing times but our fundamental needs and even workflows really haven’t changed. We are still human after all these years.
From my perspective its high time that the SAAS model for software that does not really benefit from running in the cloud collapse. It was companies just trying to extract subscription revenue.
Adobe was and is the worst offender. Using Adobe tools really don't run in the cloud. They run on your PC but you can use them without a cloud license.
What hasn't been stated is how this will favor open source solutions versus proprietary solutions like Adobe and Salesforce.
I use Wordpress/Woocommerce for my web site. AI coding has made it significantly easier to just write new software versus trying to license a general purpose plugin.
For those who have explored agent interfaces that interface to existing platforms, my early experience is that the existing cloud platforms like Microsoft and possibly Amazon are the most vulnerable here. I want to use CoPilot to access other platforms, they require me to use their Azure APIs to accomplish. This is similar to what happen with Active X versus Javascript. Anthropic has introduced MCP an interface tailored for Agents. They already have the ecosystem supporting plugins to claude. Microsofts Azure and Amazons AWS will be meaningful for legacy but not for new applications.
I own a small but growing retail bakery. I have years of experience doing technology. Using AI, I can do full implementations of integrations between my web site and quickbooks and square and quickbooks.
I'm very interested in how the delivery SAAS platforms like Doordash, Uber, etc will decide to support. They are very closed architectures to protect their customer base. They do not let me easily access their platform. AI will be pushing for them to open up to make agents able to access their platforms and create custom UIs for retail.
AI lowers the cost of coordination, not the demand for outcomes—so SMBs don’t need less software, they need more software that fits their exact workflows.
Under Coasean logic, AI-native technology services exist to redesign firm boundaries: internalizing what’s now cheap (custom logic, coordination) and externalizing only what truly shouldn’t be built in-house.
As someone who’s building a GPU-powered Terminal App, the return to a CLI-first experience makes me giggle so hard. The times have changed but only in our memory perhaps! What is old is now new, etc. etc. etc.
I liked this quote but wanted to adjust it a bit:
> “New tools will be created with AI that do new things.”
to:
> “New tools will be created with AI that do old things in new ways.
The gutenberg press enabled writing and publishing (and copy-pasta-ing) at a greater scale. The typewriter did the same and then computer and then the internet and now AI.
Every major leap seems to follow the same pattern:
1. Reduce the cost of reproduction
2. Expand who can produce content
3. Trigger a crisis among existing gatekeepers (church, state, publishers, media companies)
4. Restructure power — those who control information lose monopoly
These are amazing times but our fundamental needs and even workflows really haven’t changed. We are still human after all these years.
Software will eat world - now extends to software will eat software. It changes cost, pricing and economics for sunk capital.
From my perspective its high time that the SAAS model for software that does not really benefit from running in the cloud collapse. It was companies just trying to extract subscription revenue.
Adobe was and is the worst offender. Using Adobe tools really don't run in the cloud. They run on your PC but you can use them without a cloud license.
What hasn't been stated is how this will favor open source solutions versus proprietary solutions like Adobe and Salesforce.
I use Wordpress/Woocommerce for my web site. AI coding has made it significantly easier to just write new software versus trying to license a general purpose plugin.
For those who have explored agent interfaces that interface to existing platforms, my early experience is that the existing cloud platforms like Microsoft and possibly Amazon are the most vulnerable here. I want to use CoPilot to access other platforms, they require me to use their Azure APIs to accomplish. This is similar to what happen with Active X versus Javascript. Anthropic has introduced MCP an interface tailored for Agents. They already have the ecosystem supporting plugins to claude. Microsofts Azure and Amazons AWS will be meaningful for legacy but not for new applications.
I own a small but growing retail bakery. I have years of experience doing technology. Using AI, I can do full implementations of integrations between my web site and quickbooks and square and quickbooks.
I'm very interested in how the delivery SAAS platforms like Doordash, Uber, etc will decide to support. They are very closed architectures to protect their customer base. They do not let me easily access their platform. AI will be pushing for them to open up to make agents able to access their platforms and create custom UIs for retail.
AI lowers the cost of coordination, not the demand for outcomes—so SMBs don’t need less software, they need more software that fits their exact workflows.
Under Coasean logic, AI-native technology services exist to redesign firm boundaries: internalizing what’s now cheap (custom logic, coordination) and externalizing only what truly shouldn’t be built in-house.
Who is going to do to software what Substack did to media publishing
Make it super easy for me to own and operate a SaaS please
Great read! AI is a complement to software not a substitute.