Comment by cableshaft
14 hours ago
Maybe there's a bit more to a company and its software than the quantity of code it generates? And maybe there's a built in moat that a lot of these companies have that takes a lot of effort (and marketing, etc) to overcome?
People don't just jump social networks because a new one exist, there has to be a compelling reason to migrate over to it. And for a lot of people, there needs to be a sufficient number of people (and probably existing friends) already using the app for them to expend the effort to start using it.
It's not like there haven't been other attempts at competitors for these over the years, and you haven't heard about them probably because none of them ever got any traction. And that takes more than just building software.
Like DuckDuckGo has been competing with Google search for years (it first came out back in 2008, it looks like), and likely is way better developed than anything someone will crank out with A.I. in a short period of time. And it still has a tiny fraction of Google's marketshare.
I'm not saying there won't eventually be other competitors to these, but it'll take more than just whipping up an MVP with A.I. in a few weeks.
Oh yeah - did not intend to mean to limit the opportunity only to those who use AI.
I'm saying across the board there is massive disruptive potential because of AI (no matter what you are building) that seemingly no major corporate player is taking advantage of.
If Google goes all-in on AI, then yes the opportunity is a "non-AI" one (taking the market they left behind when they abandoned conventional search and advertising models), and to your point those like DuckDuckGo, I might even add Proton, are doing just that - going after that market Google built an empire on.
> whipping up an MVP
That's one way to think of it. Or you can take a purely mathematical and finance perspective:
Code and pixels are cheaper than they have ever been, and yet still have the same or greater earning potential than before. Replace [code and pixels] with real estate, gold, or anything else and the economics would be simple: BUY. It's cheap - buy. Hoard.
For some reason, very few finance people are seeing it that way. I would bet that even a company like DuckDuckGo (in all their benevolence /s) are still benefitting greatly from cheap code and cheap pixels. It can't be avoided - it has pervaded the industry and is providing value whether or not you believe in it or partake.