[DrScientist]

It does raise the question of where in the future will companies compete.

What's the balance going to be between, 'connecting customers to product' and 'making differentiated product'?

In theory, if customers have perfect information ( ignoring a very large part of sales is emotional ), then the former part will disappear. However the rise of the internet, and perhaps AI agents shopping on your behalf, hasn't really made much of a dent there [1] - marketing, in all it's forms, is still huge business - and you could argue still expanding ( cf google ).

[1] Perhaps because of the huge importance of the emotional component. Perhaps also because in many areas of manufacturing you've reached a product plateau already - is there much space to make a better cup and plate?

[majormajor]

There's also a world where "all companies have access to the software factory so sales and entrepreneurship in software disappears entirely."

But in that scenario it's hard to see where the unwinding stops. What are these other companies doing and which parts of it actually need humans if the "agents" are that good? Marketing? No. Talking to customers? No. Support? No. Financial planning and admin? No. Manufacturing? Some, for now. Shipping physical goods? For now. What else...

At some point where even are your customers?

[pixl97]

>It does raise the question of where in the future will companies compete.

Exactly where current companies compete, rent seeking, IP control, and legal machinations.

Hence you'll see a few giant lumbering dinosaurs control most of the market, and a few more nimble companies make successful releases until they either get crushed by, get snapped up by the larger companies, or become a large company themselves.