Ask HN: How has the software industry changed for you personally? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How has the software industry changed for you personally?

7 pointsbrindidrip8 comments

A big shift over the last year or two seems to be market access for small/indie products. I built and launched two SaaS systems (one started 13 years ago, one 7 years ago) sucessfully getting customers through organic search from Google. Trying to do something like that again and the difference is huge. There is a lot more competition everywhere, content on Google seems to get impressions but not clicks, and it just looks like the market is overcrowded.

I personally feel one of the biggest shifts is LLM's making it so easy to launch your own website and product that Shopify will start to be damaged dramatically.

In the last couple months, working with my biggest client has turned from writing code to improve her product to reviewing PRs that Claude makes - with her constantly upset that I can't keep up with the firehose, peeved when I reject a "working" PR that does things like creating redundant code rather than reusing elements already in the site for nearly a decade or providing a poor UX for users, and annoyed that the production site is so far "behind" her dev site. I really hate it but I'm not in a position to stop working with her; on the other hand I feel it's a matter of time before she decides I'm redundant and makes the decision for me.

Perhaps it's time to take up onion farming.

Been in a similar place, though before Claude Code all those problems were spread over at least three different humans in three different years.

So far it looks like the pumpkin seeds from the organic food section grow just fine, I didn't even need the more expensive seed from the gardening department…

A nightmare client would be a nightmare client regardless of the technology involved. I can definitely believe that it's way more annoying with the false confidence effect it tends to have for non-experts.

Even after this I wouldn’t call her a nightmare client if for no other reason than the invoices always get paid on time and without complaint. I’m just less satisfied with the work I’m having to do and her expectations of me.

> I really hate it but I'm not in a position to stop working with her;

Then why are you rejecting the PR?

With a client, you give them the options and the pro and cons, and unless it's literally going to kill someone, go with their decision.

If the client doesn't care about redundant code and poor ux, then that's the way it is.

Two related reasons. One, I still have a sense of ownership and pride in the product from my years of working on it well before all this AI madness started, and two, despite her occasional gripes, the client still trusts my judgment on these sorts of things.

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