Golden Age
In the Bronze Age, you wrote software in Perl and C++ and uploaded shared apps and modules to SourceForge – malware and all. You ran a blend of vendored, open source, and custom software on Dell servers in your I.T. closet connected to a T1 line. It took forever to add features, maintain the database, and deal with scaling.
One day you wake up and realize that your servers are expensive, your software has more bugs than features, and you cannot take a vacation because nobody knows how it works.
In the Silver Age, there were Businesses that offered to provide your Business with Software as a Service. No more servers and no more software! Teams of product managers decide exactly what you need and serve it directly to your browser. No need to waste time on adding features, fixing bugs, or dealing with scaling. All is provided by the platform.
One day you wake up and realize you are living in the North Korean branch of the United States Postal Service. The software is slow – when it is online, and the only features you can access are the features that are also compatible with every other customer on the platform.
In the Golden Age you are given an army of AI agents. They work while you sleep. During the Silver Age, the chip gods perfected their form and have made 60 zetta flops available to mere mortals. You can have whatever software you desire. Each day the models get better at making new models. Programmers express their designs to the agents that produce systems in days instead of months. You add new features in minutes. When your servers are on fire, your agent diagnoses the root cause in seconds.
One day you wake up and realize you are constrained by your ability to make yourself legible to capital.