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Why will we need 1000 companies tomorrow to do the same thing that 100 companies are doing today? If they are really so efficient because of AI then won't 10 co

by paxys 8mo ago

Why will we need 1000 companies tomorrow to do the same thing that 100 companies are doing today? If they are really so efficient because of AI then won't 10 companies be able to solve the same problems?

gloxkiqcza 8mo ago
There’s always more problems to be solved. Some of them just weren’t financially feasible before.
aurareturn 8mo ago
Because that car repair company with 3 local stores previously couldn't justify building custom software to make their business more efficient and aligned with what they need. The cost was too high. Now they might be able to. Plenty of businesses need very custom software but couldn't realistically build it before.
- cityofdelusion 8mo ago
  I see no way that company would save more money from hiring an experienced developer compared to paying their yearly invoice on the COTS product doing the same thing today. The only way this works is with a very wage suppressing effect.
  - aurareturn 8mo ago
    Off the shelf software could still cost thousands per year and I'm sure they don't do everything the shops need them to do.
- jimbokun 8mo ago
  Car repair companies won’t see a meaningful improvement to their bottom line with more custom software. Will it increase the number of cars per employee per day they can repair?
  - trollbridge 8mo ago
    I do bespoke work like this, but mostly to replace software that’s starting to cost mid 5 figure amounts per year for a SaaS setup and the support phone line has been replaced by an LLM chat bot.
RHSeeger 8mo ago
What makes you think they'll be doing the same thing?
awesome_dude 8mo ago
This is one of the key "inefficiencies" of the private sector - there might be one winner at the end of the day providing the product that fills the market niche, but there was always multiple competitors giving it a go in the mean time. A recent example, Mitchell Hashimoto was pointing out that he wasn't "first to market" with his product(s), he was (at least) SEVENTH
- roncesvalles 8mo ago
  Almost tautologically it's not "inefficient" to do so, because free market economics has decided that all the attempts are mathematically worth it, for a high-margin low-marginal-cost product like software.
  - awesome_dude 8mo ago
    I'm a little lost as to why seven teams duplicating effort is more "efficient" in any sense of the word than one or two teams working iteratively toward the same goal. If this were seven government funded teams solving the same problem, people would lose their minds over the 'waste' But when private companies do it, we call it efficient market competition. The duplication is the same - we just frame it differently. Edit: fixed some typos caused by fat fingers on a phone keyboard
    - roncesvalles 8mo ago
      The benefit from having a 5% better product that hundreds of millions of people will use is worth the duplicated effort in the beginning. The numbers just make sense. >If this were seven government funded teams solving the same problem The problem here is "government funded" - the trials are not rationalized by free-market economics. That is, a 5% better product in the end would not be worth seven competing developments initially.
      - awesome_dude 8mo ago
        > The benefit from having a 5% better product that hundreds of millions of people will use is worth the duplicated effort in the beginning. The numbers just make sense. This assumes that the duplicated effort arrives at a solution that is better than if it were done by a single team. > >If this were seven government funded teams solving the same problem > The problem here is "government funded" - the trials are not rationalized by free-market economics. That is, a 5% better product in the end would not be worth seven competing developments initially. I think you're saying that 5% is worth it when the free market does it, but 5% gain isn't when the government does it? I'm hoping you're not because that's impossible - the end result is precisely the same
gwd 8mo ago
For the same reason there were more bank branches after the cost-per-branch was reduced. Right now, software is really expensive; so 1) economics tends to favor large pieces of software which solve many different kinds of problems, and 2) loads of things that should be automatable simply aren't being automated with software. With the cost of software dropping, it makes more sense to have software targeted towards specific niches. Companies will do more in-house development, more things will be automated than were being automated before. Of course nobody knows what will happen; but it's entirely possible that the demand for people capable of driving Claude Code to produce useful software will explode.

by paxys 8mo ago

gloxkiqcza 8mo ago

There’s always more problems to be solved. Some of them just weren’t financially feasible before.

aurareturn 8mo ago

Because that car repair company with 3 local stores previously couldn't justify building custom software to make their business more efficient and aligned with what they need. The cost was too high. Now they might be able to. Plenty of businesses need very custom software but couldn't realistically build it before.

cityofdelusion 8mo ago
I see no way that company would save more money from hiring an experienced developer compared to paying their yearly invoice on the COTS product doing the same thing today. The only way this works is with a very wage suppressing effect.
- aurareturn 8mo ago
  Off the shelf software could still cost thousands per year and I'm sure they don't do everything the shops need them to do.
jimbokun 8mo ago
Car repair companies won’t see a meaningful improvement to their bottom line with more custom software. Will it increase the number of cars per employee per day they can repair?
- trollbridge 8mo ago
  I do bespoke work like this, but mostly to replace software that’s starting to cost mid 5 figure amounts per year for a SaaS setup and the support phone line has been replaced by an LLM chat bot.

RHSeeger 8mo ago

What makes you think they'll be doing the same thing?

awesome_dude 8mo ago

This is one of the key "inefficiencies" of the private sector - there might be one winner at the end of the day providing the product that fills the market niche, but there was always multiple competitors giving it a go in the mean time. A recent example, Mitchell Hashimoto was pointing out that he wasn't "first to market" with his product(s), he was (at least) SEVENTH

roncesvalles 8mo ago
Almost tautologically it's not "inefficient" to do so, because free market economics has decided that all the attempts are mathematically worth it, for a high-margin low-marginal-cost product like software.
- awesome_dude 8mo ago
  I'm a little lost as to why seven teams duplicating effort is more "efficient" in any sense of the word than one or two teams working iteratively toward the same goal. If this were seven government funded teams solving the same problem, people would lose their minds over the 'waste' But when private companies do it, we call it efficient market competition. The duplication is the same - we just frame it differently. Edit: fixed some typos caused by fat fingers on a phone keyboard
  - roncesvalles 8mo ago
    The benefit from having a 5% better product that hundreds of millions of people will use is worth the duplicated effort in the beginning. The numbers just make sense. >If this were seven government funded teams solving the same problem The problem here is "government funded" - the trials are not rationalized by free-market economics. That is, a 5% better product in the end would not be worth seven competing developments initially.
    - awesome_dude 8mo ago
      > The benefit from having a 5% better product that hundreds of millions of people will use is worth the duplicated effort in the beginning. The numbers just make sense. This assumes that the duplicated effort arrives at a solution that is better than if it were done by a single team. > >If this were seven government funded teams solving the same problem > The problem here is "government funded" - the trials are not rationalized by free-market economics. That is, a 5% better product in the end would not be worth seven competing developments initially. I think you're saying that 5% is worth it when the free market does it, but 5% gain isn't when the government does it? I'm hoping you're not because that's impossible - the end result is precisely the same

gwd 8mo ago

For the same reason there were more bank branches after the cost-per-branch was reduced. Right now, software is really expensive; so 1) economics tends to favor large pieces of software which solve many different kinds of problems, and 2) loads of things that should be automatable simply aren't being automated with software. With the cost of software dropping, it makes more sense to have software targeted towards specific niches. Companies will do more in-house development, more things will be automated than were being automated before. Of course nobody knows what will happen; but it's entirely possible that the demand for people capable of driving Claude Code to produce useful software will explode.