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bad_usernametoday at 6:30 AM3 repliesview on HN

It also changes the economics of buy vs build.


Replies

Legend2440today at 6:04 PM

If you extrapolate that to the logical conclusion, in the future will we buy software at all? Maybe your computer will just build whatever you need, whenever you need it.

bonzinitoday at 6:42 AM

Much less if you consider buy vs build+maintain.

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jillesvangurptoday at 7:05 AM

That's very true. People put up with the many limitations of off the shelf software because it's cheaper, not because it's better. Developing bespoke software solutions is now a lot cheaper than it used to be. So, there are a lot of cases where that now becomes the better option.

Doing in days what used to take months, is a bit of a game changer. Like with past cost reductions, people will underestimate the work and get it wrong. It helps if you know what you are doing rather than just vibe coding things.

But for rewrites, the sunk cost fallacy becomes a lot cheaper. So, that changes how you deal with stuff that clearly isn't living up to expectations. Unceremoniously replacing what wasn't that expensive to begin with might be the cheaper option relative to fixing it.

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