Though I don't agree with negative take on software like "sparkly software for management", "inflate its own demand by technical debt" or "organize itself for collective bargaining".
Sparkly software gets you just as far as it is useful usually, less sparkly sells worse but you still need it on hardware to get job done, hardware alone is not enough.
Inflate demand - well people just suck at organizing big projects there is no need to artificially inflate demand it just happens as business needs more and more features.
Software developers are bad at organizing and bargaining - because they all think they are better than others and code of other people always sucks :)
What is my hypothesis:
Hardware has physical limitations as is obvious - even if you build millions of boards - well it takes storage space, you need copper, aluminum, you cannot make transistors smaller into infinity. You can only sell so many phones as there are buyers.
Software on the other hand is limited now mostly by amount of the developers in the world. There is infinite amount of programs that you can run on finite amount of hardware. There is infinite amount of software to be built let alone maintained that is why software developer salaries are going through the roof.
While I can sell 1 phone only once now I can build SaaS solution that I will get cashflow and monthly payments it is not even that individual can capitalize on his own innovation. Basically infinite revenue stream from SaaS model is just so attractive for any business man.
Though I don't agree with negative take on software like "sparkly software for management", "inflate its own demand by technical debt" or "organize itself for collective bargaining".
Sparkly software gets you just as far as it is useful usually, less sparkly sells worse but you still need it on hardware to get job done, hardware alone is not enough.
Inflate demand - well people just suck at organizing big projects there is no need to artificially inflate demand it just happens as business needs more and more features.
Software developers are bad at organizing and bargaining - because they all think they are better than others and code of other people always sucks :)
What is my hypothesis:
Hardware has physical limitations as is obvious - even if you build millions of boards - well it takes storage space, you need copper, aluminum, you cannot make transistors smaller into infinity. You can only sell so many phones as there are buyers.
Software on the other hand is limited now mostly by amount of the developers in the world. There is infinite amount of programs that you can run on finite amount of hardware. There is infinite amount of software to be built let alone maintained that is why software developer salaries are going through the roof.
While I can sell 1 phone only once now I can build SaaS solution that I will get cashflow and monthly payments it is not even that individual can capitalize on his own innovation. Basically infinite revenue stream from SaaS model is just so attractive for any business man.