4 ms·

What's stopping software from becoming a commodity?

• anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  Learning curves and compatibility.
• vineyardmike 3y ago
  Software is a lot closer to service work than hardware. It’s way less interchangeable and mostly sits “at the top” of the stack. DuckDuckGo Vs Google Vs ChatGPT shows why a lot of software isn’t a commodity, it’s a service. And software that could be a commodity is often given away for free (Open Source). The lower in the stack you are, the closer you get to commodity. Eg SQL databases - often somewhat interchangeable for different target features, but also language and expectations don’t match exactly, so there’s high cost to switching. That’s why Oracle now has to fight cloud providers, MSFT, and a ton of open source projects for business. Comparably, several languages (C, Java/Script, Python) have multiple compilers/interpreters with much better compatibility and little commercial options.