Like many of us, I've been hobbying away on some SaaS that wraps an LLM. But I often worry, isn't this just adding buttons to an LLM call? What's the real value here? Quick money grab and wait for copies? Or do my 20 years of saas and business development actually make my SaaS better then others?
I believe it completely depends on your values and perspective, as a poor analogy: when mobile apps were a novelty a bunch of them were just that, novelties, the beer drinking app, the flicking a Zippo-esque app, and many more that hadn't much functionality, were more a tech demo, cool toys, etc.
If you don't care so much about adding something significant to the world, and your LLM-buttons-wrapper is a novelty, chug along and see where it goes if you're having fun. Looking for what value mean at this moment is a much harder effort, and probably a luck-based endeavour.
I don't have fun creating LLM-wrappers or at least haven't thought of a fun idea for it that could be even a fun novelty to work on so personally I'm not doing it but I'm using LLMs for other fun stuff that required much more of my free time before.
I used to think like this, but eventually I realized it's mostly just a way to pat yourself on the back. And ironically, I rarely saw people doing significant things waste energy talking like that, since there's no benefit in the exercise.
Very few things can't be reduced to insignificance. MacOS was just cribbing PARC, Facebook is just a glorified PHP forum, Dropbox is just SFTP, etc. etc.
Even in deep-tech, Zipline is just wrapping from deeper-tech (batteries motors etc), GLP-1s were a VA throwaway that dusted off, etc. etc.
LLM wrapper doesn't mean anything, it's an implementation detail. Besides being an LLM wrapper what is a given thing?
The beer app wasn't just a beer app, it was the intersection of the first time accelerometers were doing something that the average consumer could interact with in their pocket, the first time there was something to spend money on for your phone besides a wallpaper, a ton of things.
If anything now when something seems trivial or like a toy, but it has a lot of traction, I want to spend energy figuring out why is it more meaningful than it appears.
> I used to think like this, but eventually I realized it's mostly just a way to pat yourself on the back. And ironically, I rarely saw people doing significant things waste energy talking like that, since there's no benefit in the exercise.
I don't get what exactly you are talking about as a reply to my comment, what exercise exactly? Deciding if something is worth spending time if you're having fun with it?
> If anything now when something seems trivial or like a toy, but it has a lot of traction, I want to spend energy figuring out why is it more meaningful than it appears.
Sure, if you're having fun (and in fun I include a sense of accomplishment, curiosity, whatever tickles you) with that, go for it.
It's a strangely arrogant reply to my comment, perhaps you read something into it that I didn't say and replied to that?
The exercise is trying to reduce the world into significant/not significant efforts and then write some things off as only worth it if you don't care about the former.
Also I honestly thought we were two arrogant people conversing in good faith: you don't find unarrogant people saying things like "If you don't care so much about adding something significant to the world..."
> you don't find unarrogant people saying things like "If you don't care so much about adding something significant to the world..."
I think text distorts what I meant with that, I personally don't care much about adding something significant to the world, not anymore at least.
I found my peace by pursuing what interests me personally even though I know it might not be of much significance to anyone else, and that I won't be pursuing the path of "adding something significant" just for the prestige of it in my life.
In a sense it's the opposite of arrogance since I care much more that the person is enjoying the process of whatever they are doing rather than the results of it. I've seen too many bright friends end up miserable chasing it, I've felt too miserable myself when putting too much focus on that, I'd rather have people enjoying doing what they are interested at if it's not something harmful.
neals · · focus · HN ↗
piva00 · · focus · HN ↗
If you don't care so much about adding something significant to the world, and your LLM-buttons-wrapper is a novelty, chug along and see where it goes if you're having fun. Looking for what value mean at this moment is a much harder effort, and probably a luck-based endeavour.
I don't have fun creating LLM-wrappers or at least haven't thought of a fun idea for it that could be even a fun novelty to work on so personally I'm not doing it but I'm using LLMs for other fun stuff that required much more of my free time before.
BoorishBears · · focus · HN ↗
Very few things can't be reduced to insignificance. MacOS was just cribbing PARC, Facebook is just a glorified PHP forum, Dropbox is just SFTP, etc. etc.
Even in deep-tech, Zipline is just wrapping from deeper-tech (batteries motors etc), GLP-1s were a VA throwaway that dusted off, etc. etc.
LLM wrapper doesn't mean anything, it's an implementation detail. Besides being an LLM wrapper what is a given thing?
The beer app wasn't just a beer app, it was the intersection of the first time accelerometers were doing something that the average consumer could interact with in their pocket, the first time there was something to spend money on for your phone besides a wallpaper, a ton of things.
If anything now when something seems trivial or like a toy, but it has a lot of traction, I want to spend energy figuring out why is it more meaningful than it appears.
piva00 · · focus · HN ↗
I don't get what exactly you are talking about as a reply to my comment, what exercise exactly? Deciding if something is worth spending time if you're having fun with it?
> If anything now when something seems trivial or like a toy, but it has a lot of traction, I want to spend energy figuring out why is it more meaningful than it appears.
Sure, if you're having fun (and in fun I include a sense of accomplishment, curiosity, whatever tickles you) with that, go for it.
It's a strangely arrogant reply to my comment, perhaps you read something into it that I didn't say and replied to that?
BoorishBears · · focus · HN ↗
Also I honestly thought we were two arrogant people conversing in good faith: you don't find unarrogant people saying things like "If you don't care so much about adding something significant to the world..."
piva00 · · focus · HN ↗
I think text distorts what I meant with that, I personally don't care much about adding something significant to the world, not anymore at least.
I found my peace by pursuing what interests me personally even though I know it might not be of much significance to anyone else, and that I won't be pursuing the path of "adding something significant" just for the prestige of it in my life.
In a sense it's the opposite of arrogance since I care much more that the person is enjoying the process of whatever they are doing rather than the results of it. I've seen too many bright friends end up miserable chasing it, I've felt too miserable myself when putting too much focus on that, I'd rather have people enjoying doing what they are interested at if it's not something harmful.