Software cloning surges: one dev rebuilt ~10 open-source clones of $5B+ products
FinanceYF5 · x · 2026-10-16
Items 7-8 of FinanceYF5's thread:
- Reverse engineering and cloning are surging: more people are decompiling software and rebuilding it with agents. One person showcased a set of 10 open-source clone apps whose originals are each valued at over $5 billion. As software becomes trivially copyable, the industry is still processing what that means.
- Value may shift from software to data: when software can be rebuilt quickly, a SaaS company's real worth lies in years of customer data and workflows — 2x ARR may give way to new metrics for data value.
Related event: Agent-driven software cloning surges; SaaS value shifts from code to data(4 posts)→
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