There's probably a better take on this in the "non-sold" software market. I feel like there's an optimistic story there, in that AI could lead back towards an era of user-directed computing.
We've had a long trend of software vendors infantilizing and limiting their users, normally in the service of some goal of making the product nonintimidating to nontechnical customers (mobile-first design with hidden or nonexistent poweruser functions), or to simplify their own job (Electron instead of native)
But on any system people use frequently, users eventually want to refine and streamline their workflows, to maximize productivity and limit frustration.
I suspect the slopamatron will be the 2026 answer. 20 years ago, you might have non-developers scraping together just enough VBA, TCL/Tk, AppleScript, or even macro-recorder tools to file off their rough edges. Today, those users will ask the bot for help to wrestle back control, particular when a lot of the old hardpoints for automation don't exist in newer designs.
Most of these tools never end up on an App Store-- at best they'd be shared internally within a single organization, or a user-group if those still exist, but they're delivering way more value than the a random App Store game with 7 downloads and a bunch of legally distinct knockoff assets.
Maybe if vendors see that large numbers of their customers are enlisting AI to work around bad design decisions, they'll reconsider those decisions, or at least surface first-class automation tooling, which could be consumed by chatbots and human programmers.
So many books, so few people to read them!
There's probably a better take on this in the "non-sold" software market. I feel like there's an optimistic story there, in that AI could lead back towards an era of user-directed computing.
We've had a long trend of software vendors infantilizing and limiting their users, normally in the service of some goal of making the product nonintimidating to nontechnical customers (mobile-first design with hidden or nonexistent poweruser functions), or to simplify their own job (Electron instead of native)
But on any system people use frequently, users eventually want to refine and streamline their workflows, to maximize productivity and limit frustration.
I suspect the slopamatron will be the 2026 answer. 20 years ago, you might have non-developers scraping together just enough VBA, TCL/Tk, AppleScript, or even macro-recorder tools to file off their rough edges. Today, those users will ask the bot for help to wrestle back control, particular when a lot of the old hardpoints for automation don't exist in newer designs.
Most of these tools never end up on an App Store-- at best they'd be shared internally within a single organization, or a user-group if those still exist, but they're delivering way more value than the a random App Store game with 7 downloads and a bunch of legally distinct knockoff assets.
Maybe if vendors see that large numbers of their customers are enlisting AI to work around bad design decisions, they'll reconsider those decisions, or at least surface first-class automation tooling, which could be consumed by chatbots and human programmers.