Hey, my content output has sucked, but in my defense and I had a son earlier this month and started two consulting contracts, so I’m busy! I have a few more posts in the pipeline and I’ll be pushing those out this month. Also I reactivated my Twitter so if you can give me a follow, I’d appreciate it.
My daughter loves to take photos. Not really of anything in particular, just whatever is in front of her. She recently got a hold of my phone and 2 minutes later this is what my camera roll looked like:
While watching one such photo shoot, my mom commented that photos used to be precious. Both the film itself and the cost to develop were not cheap, and it could take days to get them back. But now they're so cheap and easy toddlers can do it.
This was an immediate effect of the smartphone, and in addition to precious memories, and new use case for photos was unlocked: communication. Snapchat was quick to realize this, built an app around it, and made deletion the default behavior. Thus Snapchat pioneered "delete by default."
Something similar is happening to software code. A friend recently had a dude's weekend, and after a couple adult beverages, they decided to vibe code an app for fun despite the fact that none of them are technical. While that app will likely never enter production or be used again, they still had a good time.
Code, like photos, used to be difficult and expensive to make. And now with AI tools like Lovable, Bolt, Replit, etc, code is like photos: cheap and easy. Most code going forward will have the same value as my daughter's pictures of the ceiling. Other SWEs can dismiss this as "throwaway code", but "deprecate by default" is the new norm.
Which leaves me wondering ... what happens next? When photos became "delete by default", people used them to talk. When code becomes "deprecate by default", what new use cases will there be? For example, is there going to be an Instagram or Twitter feed that's just vibe coded apps? Will you go to TikTok one day and it'll be different app ideas that people have tested out? Or maybe the only change is that people will make silly web apps at home with their friends?
I don't know the answer but whoever capitalizes on this behavior will eventually have 3 commas.