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Those sort of ideas are unlikely to yield major benefit, though. This is basically replicating the plight of the solo open source dev, writ large. Individual p

Those sort of ideas are unlikely to yield major benefit, though. This is basically replicating the plight of the solo open source dev, writ large. Individual programmers have long built the thing they've cared about on their own time (essentially "for free" because, despite kindergarten economics theory, a programmer cannot usually monetize a marginal hour). And it usually goes that the project never gets adopted anywhere. It might acrue more features and total man-hour effort than most of what FAANG does in open source to drown out the solo devs. But the market will decide that "no organizational buy-in" is a signal the project doesn't matter. Other developers will decide, "if he could do it, so could I" and also not adopt. Same exact thing is happening and will continue to happen with all these generated "but we wouldn't have done it otherwise" projects. It's just very, very unlikely to go anywhere. That which took very little effort to create will receive very little effort to promote.

bloaf 3mo ago
I don't think this is the right framing, because I think it confuses the means and the ends. Its like making a jig in woodworking. The measure of the jig's success is not whether it gets re-used or widespread adoption, its whether it made it easier to achieve some actual objective. Because the jig is a means to some other end. Lots of these "we wouldn't have done it otherwise" applications are means, not ends.
- breuleux 3mo ago
  That is true, but that suggests that the value of software is reverting to the value of a jig. Software that gets deployed to millions of people gets a large valuation because it provides small convenience times a million. In the era of bespoke software, you’re basically 100x-ing the production of a millionth of the value of commercial software. That’s why it isn’t all that impactful in the end and I think it’s worth highlighting.
  - moron4hire 3mo ago
    It's the underpants gnomes again. - Vibe code a bunch of small projects that we couldn't justify ROI before - ??? - Profit

bloaf 3mo ago

I don't think this is the right framing, because I think it confuses the means and the ends. Its like making a jig in woodworking. The measure of the jig's success is not whether it gets re-used or widespread adoption, its whether it made it easier to achieve some actual objective. Because the jig is a means to some other end. Lots of these "we wouldn't have done it otherwise" applications are means, not ends.

breuleux 3mo ago
That is true, but that suggests that the value of software is reverting to the value of a jig. Software that gets deployed to millions of people gets a large valuation because it provides small convenience times a million. In the era of bespoke software, you’re basically 100x-ing the production of a millionth of the value of commercial software. That’s why it isn’t all that impactful in the end and I think it’s worth highlighting.
- moron4hire 3mo ago
  It's the underpants gnomes again. - Vibe code a bunch of small projects that we couldn't justify ROI before - ??? - Profit