The Software Frontier

What changes when software becomes dramatically cheaper to create and increasingly abundant?

An evolving argument about what becomes possible when AI makes software dramatically cheaper to create and increasingly abundant.

active · 2025–2026 · updated 2026-08-11

#software #ai #making

The cost of producing software is falling faster than most organizations have changed their assumptions about where software value comes from.

This Thread follows the frontier of creation: cheaper implementation, faster iteration, weaker technical moats, and the growing importance of context, distribution, judgment, and the problems worth solving.

The argument

  1. Essay:

    Why Shipping Code Faster Won’t Save You

    Speed is cheap now. Differentiation is not. The winning teams are the ones who know what to build, not just how fast to ship.

  2. Marginalia:

    Code has never been cheaper

    Code has never been cheaper. AI writes.

  3. Essay:

    First Movers Don’t Win In Software. Last Movers Do.

    In software, first is rarely best. The winners are the ones who wait for the fog to clear, then move decisively when the category is legible.