Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

Had the cost of building custom software dropped 90%, we would be seeing a flurry of low-cost, decent-quality SaaS offering all over the marketplace, possibly undercutting some established players.

From where I sit, right now, this does not seem to be the case.

This is as if writing down the code is not the biggest problem, or the biggest time sink, of building software.

The keyword is "building". Yes costs may have dropped 90% just to build software. But there are 1000 other things that comes after it to run a successful software for months let alone years.

- Maintenance, Security

- Upgrades and patches

- Hosting and ability to maintain uptime with traffic

- Support and dealing with customer complexities

- New requirements/features

- Most importantly, ability to blame someone else (at least for management). Politics plays a part. If you build a tool in-house and it fails, you are on the chopping block. If you buy, you at least can say "Hey everyone else bought it too and I shouldn't be fired for that".

Customers pay for all of the above when they buy a SAAS subscription. AI may come for most of the above at some point but not yet. I say give it 3-5 years to see how it all pans out.

llms do all that too