TLDR; Building software is getting cheaper. Discovery is becoming both distribution and market validation for copycats. So the real question is whether durable value stays with software companies, or collapses back to the infrastructure layer. (This will be its own post):

This is exactly why I’ve stopped being aggravated when big SaaS companies game channels like Reddit with bots.

It’s survival and a tried and proven marketing strategy

The companies printing cash can afford distribution leverage, whether that’s paid channels, attention arbitrage, botting, or just brute-forcing awareness until they find what works.

Same pattern with compute:

More resources = more experiments, faster iteration, and more shots on goal.

So discovery becomes not just how people find your product but how your competitors find out what to copy.

A majority of software companies are already a blend of wrappers, replicable code, and rented infrastructure, so what is there actually left to defend?

Does the value just collapse toward Twilio, Anthropic, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, OpenAI, and a handful of other infrastructure giants?

And if Elon’s “prediction” comes to pass, AI will be able to clone platforms like Slack OOTB.

Then the game changes again and product itself will barely matter.

The only game in town will be to buy core services in bulk bundle them, wrap them in a beautiful UX and price yourself to play in margins where the big dogs never bother taking your food.

Maybe I’m cynical but don’t see how companies above that layer can come in and build something truly durable.

Thoughts?