Every other industry that went through this (fashion, food, furniture) followed the same arc which started with craftsmanship → mechanization → overproduction → commoditization → value migrates elsewhere. All of these industry feels and tastes the same. Consider food, everyone wants to open the next luxurious dining place, but does it even break high leverage revenue? Can they even stand out? How will that even work?
Software seems to be speed-running this. If thousands of indie devs are prompting the same few models for ideation, architecture, copy, and design, aren't we heading toward a cultural mode collapse? Meaning "everything converges to the same Tailwind landing page with the same feature grid" sense.
Historically, this has resulted in bifurcation where one industry competes at commodity layer with thin margins and brutal competition, or at craft layer where taste/domain expertise/judgment are the moat.
Is that where software is headed? And if so, what does the "craft layer" actually look like?
Can someone give a feel on this one?
If it means having to be 0.0001% to even remain relevant in the upcoming age, what is that 0.0001%?
Say John Doe starts a voice note for psychologist/cardio surgeons that integrates patients ECG reading live into the notes along with a voice.
5 months post launch, there is going to be another, then another, then another.
So what was the advantage will John Doe have at that point?
We've been automating people out of a job for decades. And now we've outfoxed ourselves.