Ask HN: Have web apps been commoditized? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Have web apps been commoditized?

19 pointsstcredzero12 comments

Am I too paranoid, or have web apps as a whole already become commodities? I started thinking this after reading this post:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=656804

It seems a bit too easy to create a web app nowadays. There are a few businesses that make hosting easy, and there are a variety of 3rd party tools that help as well. Amazon and Google give the entrepreneur access to seemingly unbounded resources. There's even a web app for creating web apps. (http://appjet.com/) Is it over already? Are web apps already heavily commoditized, and how would your own app escape this trap? Does the ease of creating a web app now actually make it harder to be an entrepreneur in this field?

Mattresses are commodities now. Companies now try to increase their margins by striving to convince consumers that their product is somehow special. A few companies are attempting to distinguish themselves technologically. Other companies use local advantages in manufacturing and distribution to compete.

Are the same forces at play in the web app space? Or is it an error to think of web applications as a whole as an industry?

EDIT: Perhaps I asked the wrong question. Perhaps I should have asked: Has web app programming become a commodity? (Or is it just perceived as one now?)

This is not the end. This is the beginning

Remember that HN users are opinion leaders, and the first ones to adopt new tech. Heck, they make the new tech.

My brother, my neighbour and my boss have never even heard the term webapp before, it's still in its very early phases. And these are the people that actually buy stuff. They have money and they spend it.

And here's the thing: Making a webapp is easy, making a company is hard. There's a long way from hacking an app together over the weekend to a sustainable company that will pay your bills. But if you're willing to put in the effort and time you can make a good living. You might even make a great business.

I completely agree with mixmax - webapps are just beginning to garner interest in a variety of different niches.

Most of the webapps you see are geared towards tech minded folks, but there's still a world of opportunity in other sectors.

For example, my startup provides real time analytics data for universities regarding their student enrollment. Nobody in this space is using a cloud hosted solution. Our competition has to install servers, go through the university IT department, and batch process reports... we're blowing people out of the water.

Another example is Woobius, which is basically providing a Basecamp for construction workers.

I believe that webapps are only going to get more popular as the younger, more tech-savvy generation is moving into the decision making roles in the workforce.

Great point. You're spot on with this.

But... back to the original question. Yes, of course. Web apps are commodities. For the most part, all the apps I have ever created have been made 10-100 times over.

You make a interesting observation. I think the reason it seems so popular right now is because every web app created these days caters to creatives/freelancers/webmasters. So they circulate in this area a lot. I mean I can name 20 different time tracking, invoicing, and project collaboration apps.

I see less "web apps" and more "consumer applications" in the next few years. Online software that is set out to meet a certain need in our lives.

the programming contest will get easier as higher level abstractions hide the tricky stuff, but the idea contest will also be liberated. Imagine a world where you could for example launch FMyLife.com without worring about IE6.

lightweight interfaces will be able to power sophisticated implementations, and someone has to write those.

the market size will increase. dogs will be able to understand complex event loops, just as before.

A commodity is something that has no or very little qualitative differentiation. All items are basically the same, and suppliers therefore compete only on price. So what is that uniform quality of all web apps that makes them completely interchangeable? If you can name it, I would say yes, web apps are commodities. Otherwise they are not commodities and it is irrelevant that they are easier to make than a few years ago (if that's actually the case)

Exactly. Just because the cost to produce a web app is approaching zero does not imply that web apps are becoming more homogeneous. If anything, the opposite is the case, as a reduction in the time/effort to turn an idea into a reality results in more variation.

The increasing ease of copying other people's ideas is the one mechanism by which improving technology does make webapps more similar. However, copying others has never been particularly difficult, and gaining a first-mover advantage, especially in high-margin or community-based apps, should provide sufficient reward for innovation.

Most webapps are mostly CRUD, with a few specialized screens and a few Roles.

Plastic is a commodity. Injection molded plastic comes in a variety of colors, shapes, and densities. It can be used to create very specialized parts/products.

Perhaps my question is misphrased. Perhaps I should have asked, "Is web app programming a commodity?"

Plastic, at least, has to be formed into a product by someone. The value derrived from act of forming something depends on the output of the process. Therefore, the act of forming has little value if the output is of little value to the market.

What you're observing in our industry, likely without realizing it, is that no one is innovating. There are no Thomas Edisons.

Yes I think that's a much better question. If web app programming was a commodity it would mean that any programmer could make equally good web apps with the available tools. But I think the answer is still no. My perception is that the difference between good and bad web apps is vast. 80% of the web apps I have ever used are hardly usable at all.

Appjet shut down, you know. So there isn't even a good web app that lets you do what appjet used to let you do!

I remember people saying this back in 2001.

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