Comment by pigpop
Yes, that's an excellent framing of where we're at and the role that LLM generated software is excelling in. Custom software has been out of reach for many people who would benefit from it due to requiring either a lot of money to pay someone to build it or a lot of time to learn how to build it yourself and execute on that process. Right now you can essentially use services like Claude as a custom software "app store", although I'd really call it a service, where you can say "I'd like an app that does X" and depending on the scope you can get that app as a Claude Artifact in a few minutes or, if you're familiar with software development and build/deployment processes, in a few hours to days as a more traditional software artifact which you can host somewhere or install locally. Google is working hard to make this even more achievable for non-developers with Google AI Studio https://aistudio.google.com/ and Firebase Studio https://firebase.studio/
Exactly. LLMs aren't taking the jobs of developers - unless they're selling some micro-SaaS stuff that anyone with enough domain knowledge can duplicate with a Claude subscription over a weekend.
Like the DVD catalogue software I was using[0] became subscription based, and I'm not paying 50€/year for that.
Just rewrote the bits that I need this afternoon with Claude. It definitely doesn't have the same features as the CLZ Movies app had, but it has all the ones I need specifically (adding movies easily, quickly seeing if I already own a movie).
And the same will happen to more and more SaaS style things unless they offer something unique a self-made and self-hosted one can't provide.
[0] https://clz.com/movies