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by Wowfunhappy 132 days ago
> I’m saying this to point out that we’re really already in the enshittification phase before the rapid growth phase has even ended. You’re paying $200 and acting like that’s a cheap SaaS product for an individual.

Traditional SaaS products don't write code for me. They also cost much less to run.

I'm having a lot of trouble seeing this as enshittification. I'm not saying it won't happen some day, but I don't think we're there. $200 per month is a lot, but it depends on what you're getting. In this case, I'm getting a service that writes code for me on demand.
1 comments
dangus 132 days ago
Traditional SaaS products literally “write code” for you (they implement business logic). See: Zapier, Excel.

The enshittification is that the costs are going up faster than inflation and companies like OpenAI are talking about adding advertisements.

https://www.fintechweekly.com/magazine/articles/cursor-prici...

https://hostbor.com/claude-ai-max-plan-explained/

We can see especially in the case of Claude AI Max that while it sounds like you’re getting better value than the cheaper plans, the company is now encouraging less efficient use of the tool (having multiple agents talking to each other, rather than improving models so that one agent is doing work correctly).

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Wowfunhappy 131 days ago
> Traditional SaaS products literally “write code” for you (they implement business logic). See: Zapier, Excel.

Eh, I'd call those a sort of programming language. The user is still writing code, albeit in a "friendlier" manner. You can't just ask for what you want in English.

> The enshittification is that the costs are going up faster than inflation and companies like OpenAI are talking about adding advertisements.

In 1980, IT would have cost $0 at most companies. It's okay for costs to go up if you're getting a service you were not getting before.

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dangus 131 days ago
In 1980, the costs associated with what we today call IT were not $0, they were just spread around in administrative clerical duties performed by a lot of humans.
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Wowfunhappy 131 days ago
Okay, but I think the analogy still works with that framing. These AI products can do tasks that would previously have been performed by a larger number of humans.
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