this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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Programming
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I've been saying this for years (maybe I need to start a blog?). Being able to make an app and make a product are completely different things.
If one person can quickly create an app someone else can as easily create open source version and just give it away. To offer a product you need sales, customer service, technical support and so on and creating this organization has nothing to do with writing code. There are exceptions like video games where one person can create and distribute a product but it's because it's more art than engineering. For a SaaS platform to be a "product" it needs to offer functionality that's impossible to implement for a small team in a short period of time or evolve using AI.
There are more exceptions than just games. I know someone who made a good career writing statistical forecasting software. It was just himself and he had some large corporations as clients.
There a niches of expertise for which most businesses don’t need dedicated employees or even software licenses. But, you’re not going to write the software with AI because it takes domain experience and expertise that AI can’t emulate.