The Rise of the Software Creator

In the age of AI, software creators, like content creators, will emerge as the industry’s non-professional creative class.

No, this isn’t the end of software, but it is the beginning of a new software era. And I like the media industry analogy, but it’s an evolution, not a death. [1]

Legacy media was dominated by high-budget mass producers of film, television, radio, and print. It was technically complex, expensive, and centrally controlled by a few big players. The internet revolutionized this, lowering costs, increasing access, and giving rise to giant “streaming” and user-generated content platforms.

Historically, software too was technically complex, expensive to build, and largely geared towards professionals and professional organizations. This, coupled with platform constraints and market forces such as network effects and switching costs, created just a few dominant players in any given software sector.

The democratization of media creation and distribution led to the rise of content creators. Similarly, the democratization of software creation and distribution, now accelerated by AI, will usher in t…