zlacker

Perhaps OP's argument still applies to dev-oriented SaaS.

Are you as a dev still going to pay for analytics and dashboards that you could have propped up by Claude in 5 minutes instead?

>>jdthed+(OP)
Yes, because then I know the code is properly engineering, tested, maintained and supported.

Generating code is one part of software engineering is a small part of SaaS.

>>rhubar+31
I'd love for SaaS to stay thriving but the flip side is simply the harsh reality that my own second thought these days is immediately "how easily will an agent replace my idea? yea probably quite easily..."

>>rhubar+31
How do you/I know that? I implemented OpenTelemetry in a project of mine recently and was shocked to see the number of AI authored commits in the git repository.

>>Invert+ea
> How do you/I know that? I implemented OpenTelemetry in a project of mine recently and was shocked to see the number of AI authored commits

Do you pay for OpenTelemetry? How is this related?

>>re-thc+oj
If I did, I likely wouldn't have access to the source code and wouldn't be able to verify the degree of AI input.

So, I ask again - how do you know that the service you're paying for is all of those things?

>>jdthed+j6
Before AI, people would search for a free or open source alternatives before using a saas

>>jdthed+(OP)
The value proposition of SaaS is ultimately just that it's not a hack.

Most SaaS products could be replaced by a form + spreadsheet + email workflow, and the reason they aren't is that people don't want to be dealing with a hacky solution. Devs can hack together a nice little webapp instead of a network of spreadsheets, but it's still a hack. Factoring in AI assistance, perhaps SaaS is now competing with "something I hacked together in a week" as opposed to "something I hacked together in a month," but it's a hack either way.

I am absolutely going to pay for analytics and dashboards, because I don't want the operational concerns of my Elasticsearch analytics cluster getting in the way of the alarm that goes off when my primary database catches fire. Ops visibility is too important to be a hack, regardless of how quickly I could implement that hack.

>>jdthed+j6
Ideas were never worth much. Implementing a quick prototype was always pretty simple. How easy is it, with modern tooling, to build a collaborative web editor? Just slap together prosemirror and automerge and you're already there. Still, nobody has displaced Google Docs.

>>jdthed+(OP)
Analytics like what?! Sentry? See, i'm the first one to waste 15+ hours of my own time claude vibing some barely working analytics in order to save 15 dollars for not paying a proven solution to professionals who really understand that problem domain - but we all agree how dumb this is. But if i really can vibe code that analytics in 5 minutes, that thing was never a proven SaaS business in the first place and my use case with certainty a toy app with zero users..

>>Invert+Ko
> So, I ask again - how do you know that the service you're paying for is all of those things?

How do you know anything? How do you know the bank won't lose your money? How do you know the bank note you hold is worth what it says? How do you know?