Code Is Cheap. Software Is Expensive?

What happens now? - YouTube by Theo - t3․gg - YouTube

Code Is Cheap Now. Software Isn’t. — Chris Gregori

1. The Collapse of the Barrier to Entry

• Point: Building functional code is no longer a privilege held only by professional developers.

• Justification: Tools like Claude Code and Claude Opus 4.5 allow non-technical "builders" to architect their own tools (e.g., subscription trackers or niche Chrome extensions) simply by describing what they need.

2. The Rise of "Disposable" Personal Software

• Point: We are moving away from permanent SaaS platforms toward ephemeral "scratchpad" software.

• Justification: Because the cost and time to generate code have dropped so low, it is now viable to build a tool for a single, one-off task and discard it immediately after, similar to how one uses a spreadsheet for quick calculations.

3. Code is Cheap; Software is Expensive

• Point: Writing lines of code is easy, but building robust, real-world software remains difficult.

• Justification: LLMs can generate syntax, but they don't solve for "the friction of the real world," such as maintenance, edge cases, UX debt, and breaking changes in third-party APIs or DOM structures.

4. The Shifting Role of the Engineer

• Point: The value of a software engineer has moved from the "how" (syntax) to the "what" and "why" (systems).

• Justification: AI hides complexity rather than managing it. Engineers are still required for architectural rigor—knowing how to manage distributed caches, rate-limiting, and data security—tasks that AI-native "weekend apps" often fail to address.

5. Distribution is the New Bottleneck

• Point: Engineering leverage is no longer a primary differentiator for a business.

• Justification: Since anyone can generate a product quickly, the competitive advantage has shifted to factors that are harder to automate: taste, timing, and a deep understanding of the audience. The hardest part is no longer building, but "finding a way to get people to care."