> There seems to be some implicit feeling that everything ought to be getting better and cheaper than it used to be.
But don't we see this everywhere, all the time? Pull up any of the recent Claude Code threads about the product's declining quality and you'll see at least a handful of well-upvoted comments about how text generators are definitely going to get cheaper while simultaneously getting "better" over time.
New things, like computers, get better and cheaper because they are new, so there is a lot of room for improvement. We have had a very long time to optimize making cotton into clothing, or growing and transporting wheat. There is a limit to how cheap those things can get for a given quality point and a given level of technology, and we've pretty much reached it.
Why would it keep the notification history after they’ve been dismissed, though? There’s no user-facing way (that I’m aware of) to access a history of dismissed notifications.
Only a small sliver of the world has to worry about health insurance. Job security, maybe.
I think the biggest component is all the crap that comes with running a business.. accounting, sales, budgets and planning, regulatory concerns, office/site management, the list goes on forever. I'm an engineer, I want to do this and leave the other jobs to people who specialize at those, not run around trying to spin a dozen plates at once. I'm sure there's a tidbit more money to be made but it's just not worth it for me.
Now, if someone can make a vibe-business platform where AI handles all the drudgery and I can stick to the tech.. that might be worth talking about.
How could your "business" ever make money if any idiot with a $20 CC subscription can recreate it in a weekend? And no, "I can prompt better than them" is not a differentiator.
The idea is the opposite - "nobody" can make money selling software anymore, because software can be cheaply created by an LLM, so you want to start a business that previously would have had to buy software/software engineers in order to support some other product.
However, even if that holds true (which is a big if - right now I wouldn't want to run a business backed by vibe software), and even if there are enough such business ideas to go around, there's going to be quite a lot of turmoil in the meantime.
I don't think that's true. SW that works is still expensive to produce. SW that kind of works is super easy to do. The money is in making SW that works. You still need expertise for that.
There's a fallacy here around how software is fungible. WordPress hasn't made web developers obsolete, despite everybody having access to a $5/mo WYSIWYG-and-domains-and-hosting-bundle environment; quite the opposite, in fact.
I'm seeing the parent's point along these lines: "me and all my friends are starting businesses being the middlemen between WordPress and (people who want websites)". It's not that it won't work, it's just a shit business model.
It's the gym, the trainer, the social environment, and a million other things you wouldn't think of until you have boots on the ground, eg a language model can't sign a vendor liability contract. People thought the rise of the internet would kill gyms because anyone can download the routine for an Olympic athlete for free. Turns out access to information is not the same as execution. It happened multiple times with websites/apps/Peloton. Every time fitness culture skyrocketed and gyms have benefited.
How could your "business" ever make money if any idiot with a $20 CC subscription can recreate it in a weekend? And no, "I can prompt better than them" is not a differentiator.
If you truly believe this, you'd invest every cent you have into Nvidia, TSMC, and energy companies.
We (the two of us) do fine with 95% Costco shopping, and I have similar "she won't commit to eating something specific for a week" restrictions. The only real tricks are get better at storage[1], and get better at cooking[2]. FWIW, the 2% rebate on the executive membership always covers my membership renewal price plus $50-$100 off a shop.
[1] Yes, you need somewhere to stuff 24 rolls of paper towels etc. I ended up building more shelves in the voids at the top of closets and the like. Ladder-access only but it works out.
[2] Stop doing 32-ingredient cooks with baby bok choy and white tomatoes and whatever other exotic instagram reels crap. Buy beef, chicken, fish, then portion and freeze (a vacuum-sealer is not necessary but it helps). Buy a standard 4-5 vegetables and a couple fruits. Potatoes and rice for carbs. Then figure out a list of recipes you can make from those ingredients -- I promise they can be combined damn near indefinitely.
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