[bluesnowmonkey]

With farming, you couldn't just start your own farm, because it requires farmland, and there's only so much of that. But those 6 software engineers can start their own companies, fire up their own team of agents. There's no limit to how many companies can exist in the world.

[forlorn_mammoth]

and buy their own health insurance, and find their own customers, ...

[insane_dreamer]

> There's no limit to how many companies can exist in the world.

1) demand for software is not, and was never infinite

2) the AI that put the 6 SWEs out of a job is the same AI that is supplying the demand; meaning there is no demand for 6 new software companies

[ryandrake]

"Just start your own company!" - Hacker News

[ge96]

It makes sense go bankrupt, start another LLC.

No I watch/listen to a lot of entrepreneurial stuff since 2016 and I still haven't launched my own product. There's a YT channel "Starter Story" it's like "this person make $100K/mo, here is the template".

It really is simple though, put a paypal button on a squarespace page and ask someone to pay it.

[bluesnowmonkey]

Yeah pretty much. Have you seen Polsia and its ilk? Maybe "trivial" would be too strong a word but... in 2026 it's not hard.

That's my point. You couldn't tell an unemployed farm worker to go start their own farm. They probably don't have the land or substantial capital it takes. But an unemployed software engineer just doesn't need anything like that to go into a business built on AI.

[tavavex]

This may seem like an important change that's making things different today, but it's not. Farms back in the day were constrained by supply, software today is constrained by demand.

A farmer couldn't create a farm from nothing, but if you had one, you very likely were able to sell its products - everyone always wants to eat. That is in addition to the natural benefit of being able to use the food grown there to survive all on their own, being your own guaranteed consumer.

A software developer can create software from nothing, but who is going to buy it? There's not enough consumers and problems in the world for everyone to have their own specialized business that is able to thrive. Someone is always going to be left out. It's not like food.

It's like as if a farmer was able to conjure up a farm for free, but there is such an abundance of farms that to sell the crops to anyone, you'd need the help of a bigger business, or try to cultivate very specialized and niche crops that are not being made by one of the mega-farms, yet.

[ethagnawl]

> A software developer can create software from nothing, but who is going to buy it?

Especially when people or orgs who would have previously paid them for said software can now crap out an 80% solution in a few hours or days.

[ej88]

i would argue its the opposite

farming hit a ceiling because of demand

software today is heavily, heavily constrained by supply. demand is basically infinite for actually good software that solves problems people have (and people always have problems).

[pjmlp]

Pity that as everyone is unemployeed, those companies don't have anyone to sell to.