Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of self-hosting but there’s a reason we don’t manage and run our own email infrastructure.
I think the SaaS is dead meme is really just a “SaaS can’t be lazy anymore”. The days of offering a product that technically does something, but is incredibly poorly designed, or not well integrated, or unsupported — are over.
If your SaaS doesn’t support both Google and Microsoft; macOS and Windows; iOS and Android; automated provisioning, complex/fine-grained RBAC, customisable onboarding.. You’re dead in the water.
The moat of features has evaporated, and your only defence is good UX, stability and TCO.
AI isn’t eating SaaS. It’s eating shitty businesses.
Password Manager SaaS that have been breached are dead.
Auth providers that scale their pricing model to their investors growth expectations are dead.
Platforms and technical products that did something a script could do, with little support for real business software, ecosystems and environments are dead.
> AI isn’t eating SaaS. It’s eating shitty businesses.
AI isn't even eating most shitty SaaS businesses, because it's a weird HN fantasy that your hairdresser or car mechanic are itching to manage agent swarms and risk losing their business if that goes sideways. They would much rather pay several hundred bucks for a SaaS product that has a bunch of UI annoyances.
I think the SaaS is dead meme is really just a “SaaS can’t be lazy anymore”. The days of offering a product that technically does something, but is incredibly poorly designed, or not well integrated, or unsupported — are over.
If your SaaS doesn’t support both Google and Microsoft; macOS and Windows; iOS and Android; automated provisioning, complex/fine-grained RBAC, customisable onboarding.. You’re dead in the water.
The moat of features has evaporated, and your only defence is good UX, stability and TCO.
AI isn’t eating SaaS. It’s eating shitty businesses.
Password Manager SaaS that have been breached are dead.
Auth providers that scale their pricing model to their investors growth expectations are dead.
Platforms and technical products that did something a script could do, with little support for real business software, ecosystems and environments are dead.