Software is oversold: why no one is vibe-coding their payroll
illscience · x · 2026-09-08
A widely shared essay argues software is oversold — nobody is vibe-coding their payroll. Key points: coding agents are best for extending a company's ambition, not rewriting existing SaaS; the math doesn't work since software is typically only 8-12% of enterprise spend, so even dramatic replacement savings net out to 3-5%; critical systems carry huge risk because they encode tribal knowledge, edge cases and runtime behavior models can't fully infer; and non-software switching costs loom large. The real opportunity for agents is incremental innovation, not displacing incumbent systems.
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