The Coming Software Reckoning: When AI Can Rebuild What Customers Have Been Paying For
The future of SaaS, the rise of vibe coding, Adobe’s market dominance, and the strategic threat to established software companies Introduction: The threat is no longer theoretical For decades, the software industry has operated on a relatively stable assumption: developing sophisticated applications requires substantial investment, specialized engineering teams, years of accumulated intellectual property, and continuous maintenance. These barriers have allowed established software companies to build powerful market positions, sustain premium pricing, and maintain considerable control over their customers. Artificial intelligence is changing not only how software is used but, more fundamentally, who can build it, how quickly it can be built, and what customers should reasonably be expected to pay for it. The rise of vibe coding, AI-assisted professional software engineering, and increasingly autonomous coding agents introduces a competitive threat that many estab...