We’ve been talking for a while about how neural networks will replace (and are replacing, to some extent) developers. This change is expected in the foreseeable future — not tomorrow, as NVIDIA’s CEO might hope, but I bet I’ll witness it in my lifetime. Twenty years ago, website creation required a skillset possessed by a small circle of people. Now, we’re seeing that virtually anyone can build a basic app with zero coding knowledge (backend or frontend), no design skills, and just a bit of human intelligence, using cutting-edge tools like Replit Agent, Cursor’s built-in features, and v0.

So what’s going to happen when anyone, including my grandma, can produce their app, game, or startup in an evening?

This scenario presents both opportunities and challenges. On one hand, it could lead to an explosion of creativity and innovation, with people from all walks of life bringing their ideas to life. We might see a surge in niche applications tailored to specific needs that mainstream developers and companies previously overlooked. On the other hand, this democratization of app creation could lead to market saturation, making it harder for truly innovative ideas to stand out.

This is somewhat similar to what I suspect will happen to the music industry. AI can already create mediocre “radio-level” songs in about a minute, including lyrics and music. As music production becomes more accessible to people without musical training, the market will rapidly become oversaturated with somewhat quality music. We’ll likely end up with hyper-personalized 24/7 streams of precisely tailored, live-generated songs created by virtual musicians. Each person’s playlist will be unique, people will “remix” others’ songs on the fly to their liking, and there’ll be an elite circle of human-created music appreciators.

The difference with code is that it’s not appreciated as something requiring human creation. It simply doesn’t have that inherent value. So it will generally only lead to market overflow and not the creation of trendy human-made items.

This trend in app development could (and probably will) lead to a shift in how we value software. Rather than focusing on the technical aspects of coding, the emphasis might move towards the uniqueness of user experience and problem-solving capabilities. In this case, success in the app market might depend more on marketing, branding, and the ability to identify and meet specific user needs. Additionally, we might see the rise of new platforms or marketplaces designed to help these citizen developers showcase and monetize their creations.

Technical complexity will generally not be a factor. We’ll see a surge in highly specialized, niche applications that cater to specific user needs or solve unique problems. These will be highly targeted and personalized as well.

It’s going to be a matter of not how to build it, but how to sell it. The price and value of software overall will decrease significantly.

Problems? Yes. Quality control, security, and the long-term maintenance of these citizen-developed applications. But that’s another topic for later.

Have you seen those 5-star rated and widely liked posts like “How I made an app in 1 hour and it gets me $1000 a day” and “Top 5 ideas for emerging products built with AI”? People are already making money just by informing you that you can do this stuff.

And my advice is that you should. Just jump into Replit and try to make something. Hop on that train while it hasn’t left the station and transformed into a spaceship. It’s going to be something else entirely before most people even realize it existed.