Sam Vale: if software can be cloned in a weekend, what's left?
Not every post in the obituary column is a victory lap. Sam Vale says he has spent months building everything he always wanted with AI, from apps and micro-SaaS products to platforms, and now feels down about it. If 98% of software can be cloned or vibe-coded over a weekend, he asks, where is the long-term value? With the technical barrier practically at zero and code no longer an advantage, he admits he doesn't know what's left. It's the zombie's existential crisis: winning the war against SaaS, then wondering what all the building was for.
I need to be honest with you guys. Software is dead.
Over the past few months, I’ve built everything I always wanted to build. Apps, micro-SaaS products, platforms I never had the time or resources to launch before. I built all of it using AI.
But lately, I’ve been feeling pretty down about it. It feels like none of this has any real long-term value.
If 98% of any software can be cloned or vibe coded over a weekend, where’s the value in what we’re building? What’s the point of encouraging people to keep doing the same thing?
The technical barrier to entry is practically zero now.
And if code itself is no longer a competitive advantage, what’s actually left at the end of the day?
Sometimes I find myself thinking about this, and I genuinely don’t know the answer.
— Sam Vale, read the original on XMore SaaS obituaries
- David Kobia hit a broken support link and vibe coded a SendGrid alternative by Sunday night
- Hunter Bohm cancelled 5 subscriptions in two weeks with Claude Code, about $134 a month
- Kelly C. built a half-decent CRM in about the time it took to research and price CRMs
- Noah Kagan says Claude Max killed $15,788 a year of software, Carta and Zapier included
- Pawan cancelled $1,700/month construction software after bots rebuilt it on QuickBooks