Comment by __MatrixMan__

> executives are simply not interested in the risks associated with such an endeavour when they can just buy the solution outright

I think you're missing two things here.

1. The margin by which a hosted product is operationally superior to self hosting an open source alternative is precisely calibrated. The SaaS provider has no reason to invest beyond the point were they can reliably make the sale.

2. Self hosted open source solutions come with a big bonus re: the ability to read and modify their code. But realistically ain't nobody got time for that.

AI upsets the apple cart in both cases. It's now far easier to manage locally hosted open source solutions, which means that in order to maintain the favorable effort ratio for making a sale, products must all get significantly better than their open source alternatives. That's gonna be a slow process involving innovative product owners. AI is getting better faster than it can happen.

Also, since AI is trained on the open source code, it's very good at integrating open source components. Previously nobody was bothering to gain that kind of mastery over their tools but now you can leverage it right out of the gate--but only if you're using projects that are in your assistant's training data. Maintaining a moat around a software product has always been orthogonal to making your product useful, but as we lean on AI more, it'll get worse. The more you protect your IP, the more its usability degrades. This was always true, but now it doubly true.

Executives may want to pay for a solution to their problems. But the companies that might provide those solutions no longer have a sustainable path.

The future of software is as a tool, not as a product or a service.