let me break down “software is dead” for you

the latest argument is “you just tell your agent what you want, and your agent will vibe code software on the fly to get that done, so no one will need real software any more”

sounds reasonable, until you realize it costs tokens, compute, and wall clock time to build those software on the fly

so instead of one-click launching an app, the bet is people will prefer to write a prompt, wait for 15 minutes, then get something that may or may not do what they want, and at the end of the month pay more $$$ for the token spend, higher than all their software combined

that’s literally the argument

and if we look at the world in aggregate, most people would just end up building the exact same “personal” software repeatedly

oh - your agent just spent 3 days and $500 of tokens vibe coding your terminal multiplexer? mine just did exactly the same! let’s celebrate how personal our terminal multiplexers are!

sorry - i just don’t see that as being a happy scenario for anyone, other than people who profit from telling others how to waste $ on tokens

to be constructive, here’s what i believe as the future state -

- high quality software that takes high cost to make will continue to thrive. just like good restaurants don’t compete with your air fryer and microwave

- most of those software will be offered headlessly for people to use via their agents, and they can continue to monetize such usage. this is already the case with products like jira, linear, stripe

- human-facing software will all offer dynamic UI that can be adjusted with natural language on the fly so they can be personalized easily, but their core doesn’t have to be rebuilt by every user repeatedly

instead of “software is dead”, i believe good software becomes “strong core, headless service, fluid interface”

which future do you think is more likely?