Software development is finally more affordable than ever. Hooray!
So why are we still fucking over our users?
Software engineering pre-AI was expensive. You had to hire circuit whispering shamans who were always in short supply (they tried offshoring but this sometimes doesn’t work out) and they had to be bloody good otherwise your entire product could go down.
The result was twofold: an interview process which was more akin to a hazing process (what this essay is not about) and once PMF was reached, extracting as much value as possible.
In order to extract as much value as possible, we developed dark patterns: the confusing cancellation flows, hidden unsubscribe buttons, infinite scroll designed to eat your time. The gamble was that if the software was useful enough, people would put up with it.
So, AI broke made software engineering affordable — and we decided to hit the gas in the wrong direction.
Companies are still looking to harm their users, ranging from tricking users to give up more data than they should to outright psychological manipulation.
The market still incentivises this and rewards companies that engage in this exploitative behaviour. So why should companies divert from this strategy when it means increased margins?
On an enterprise level, companies are building in-house replacements for tools they used to buy — analytics, security, infrastructure. The SaaS gold rush of the 20X0s created a generation of bloated, overpriced tools that companies are now actively trying to escape. Why? Cause they trust the software they make to not screw them over.
On a government level, GDPR has been a success and entire democratic countries are banning children from social media. On the individual consumer level, people are deleting apps and buying dumb phones.
The trend is clear: the industry has fucked around, and they’re finding out no one likes us.
For the first time, the cost reasoning that justified predatory design is gone. There’s no longer a financial reason to hide pricing behind a sales call, design for engagement over value, or build notifications that manufacture anxiety.
We can finally afford to do it properly.
Honest pricing. A recommendation algorithm which respects your time. A privacy policy written for humans. Features that actually help people rather than trap them.
None of this is technically difficult. It never was. What it required was space in the budget to prioritise the users needs.
It’s not about who ships fastest anymore. It’s about which software respects the dignity of their users.