[OsrsNeedsf2P]

An app like Cal.com can be vibe coded in a few evenings with a Chrome MCP server pointed to their website to figure out all the nooks and crannys. The moat of Cal.com is not the code, it's the users who don't want to migrate.

The real answer is they are likely having a hard time converting people to paid plans

[notnullorvoid]

> The moat of Cal.com is not the code, it's the users who don't want to migrate.

That's a very weak moat unless you have something else like the friction of network dependence similar to a social network.

[eloisant]

Exactly, that's why most Saas companies are in a very tough position.

You have to bring value that goes beyond the source code and hosting, otherwise your clients are going to vibe code a custom solution instead of paying you.

[OccamsMirror]

> otherwise your clients are going to vibe code a custom solution instead of paying you.

How many things do you want to be responsible for? How many vibe coded projects do you want to maintain?

I think this line of reasoning is overblown. Just because you can doesn't mean a significant number of people will. I think the 3D printer comparison is apt.

[eloisant]

Individuals and SMB might stick with Saas but those don't pay much.

Enterprise customers have the means to develop in house, those are the customers that will leave. And those are the whales of the Saas business.

[OccamsMirror]

They already have the means to develop in house. Why aren't they?

[chasd00]

Same story as always, writing the code in the easy part. Requirement gathering, analysis, consensus, direction, those are all the hard parts. Enterprises have a business to run and don’t want to run a software shop on top of everything else.

[Gormo]

They are, and always have. Looking over "software engineer" roles in my local area, I see folks at companies in a variety of industries: finance, health, logistics, health care, and the local power utility, all well outside the software industry.

Most enterprise companies don't develop everything in house, but usually do have a varied mix of in-house infrastructure, IaaS and PaaS solutions, and SaaS products. Large organizations across varied industries often have multiple internal dev teams, and the availability of increasingly sophisticated AI tools is going to enable the same teams to be effective at more, and more complex, projects. AI will definitely start shifting make-or-buy decisions, especially for mature, commodity use cases, to 'make'.

[eloisant]

This is much less work (= cheaper) to develop in-house with AI now than before.

[runako]

They won’t, because specialization is a key aspect of capitalism.

This is why companies outsource anything. Google, Inc. is big enough to own farms and ranches to grow the food eaten in its cafeterias. They could make trucks to transport that food. They could operate factories to make cutlery, etc. Why do they instead choose to pay layers of margins to layers of middlemen?

Absurd example? How about Apple? They outsource production of their chips, instead of capturing the margin they are currently gifting to their partners. Why?

Delta Airlines doesn’t operate oil fields or even refineries even though a major cost of their operations is jet fuel. Why?

Once you can reason through these very simple examples, you will understand why enterprises are unlikely to walk away from SaaS.

[codytruscott]

Delta owns and operates a refinery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trainer_Refinery

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/delta-air-lines-refi...

[chii]

> How many vibe coded projects do you want to maintain?

here comes the next SaaS idea - vibe coded services as a service. You tell what service you want, may be point out a couple examples, and you get that service vibe coded and hosted for you for a small monthly fee!

[hvb2]

I think you missed the point. Being responsible for a vibe coded product means also being able to support it and handle outages etcetera.

So, no, hosting LLM output is not the same as being responsible

[philipov]

Sunk cost is sufficient friction for most people even without network dependence.

[shimman]

For a meeting scheduler site? I feel like you're overestimating the capabilities of something that is akin to college graduate project.

This company does not seem healthy at all:

https://getlatka.com/companies/calcom

I agree with the other poster that mention this is likely a publicity stunt but all it's really showing is that VC is still incredibly stupid with their money. All the more reason to seize it from them then properly fund useful software and not subsidize vanity projects for stanford grads.

[cootsnuck]

About the friction, not the capabilities...I haven't switched off my biz calendar/appointment provider I'm paying for even though I've kinda outgrown it.

I wouldn't under estimate switching friction.

[hrimfaxi]

How much does your friction avoidance cost, if you don't mind my asking?

[jmcgough]

idk my mom still pays for her aol email account

[notnullorvoid]

Email is actually a excellent example of something with network dependence. Changing email providers requires that you change your email address too (unless you own and use your own domain). An address change causes friction from having to update the network of contacts and services which used your old email address.

[rhubarbtree]

Best business insight posted on HN. This. Your code is not your business.

[opem]

For real, one of the reasons I use cal.com is because it's open source. Time to migrate.

[lrvick]

Same. I expect in a misguided effort to save customers, they are going to lose a lot more. My two companies will be canceling over this.

[il-b]

> An app like Cal.com can be vibe coded in a few evenings

Do it then

[j45]

Coding something vs maintaining it can be quite different things.

[TeMPOraL]

For many use cases, maintenance doesn't matter. At this point, using LLMs to one-shot a tool/service for a single use or time-limited use case is becoming more appealing than signing up with some vendor, even for free.

[j45]

If it's got the lifespan of a short lived spreadsheet, maybe.

People can one shot to the moon, if the input and improvements can't be sustained, it goes sideways. Still an exciting space.

[indianmouse]

May be trying creating one and see how much effort and time is required to clone such a functionality to a proper working state! Something for personal use can be created in about 5-10 days, but even then the skill that is required and the amount of tokens to burn, hosting and security etc, will easily kill. This is exactly the thought process of many, but it will surely kill many opensource contributors. I've stopped committing anything to any open source repos as a personal choice. I do not want to train a LLM which will eventually create more slop and headaches since for me, time is the only important factor which holds the maximum value! Nothing else!