Thread

1. bobajeff · 1790644006 · focus · HN ↗

   Is not just games. I've already seen the beginnings of proprietary software such as Wolfram Engine and Microsoft Word vibed up into alternatives. How long till all of MS Office, Creative Cloud, Houdini get the same treatment? Truly exciting times.

   1. le-mark · 1790647449 · focus · HN ↗

      Yes then expand to popular saas like jira etc, then photoshop. The potential of this sort of disruption was priced into stocks as “saaspocalypss” about may 2026.

      1. Kuyawa · 1790687515 · focus · HN ↗

         Shhh, I have slack, jira and trello in my crosshair
   2. brookst · 1790653922 · focus · HN ↗

      Yep. And these companies know it. I’ve been in the room with execs candidly saying their billion-dollar cash cows will be easily replicated by a teenager on a weekend.

      The sane ones recognize that sales, service, and support have value. Is that teenager going to ensure 24/7 operation for a multinational?

      The less sane ones think “if one teenager can build MS office, our thousands of SWEs can make thousands of, uh, help me out here…”

   3. gmerc · 1790660141 · focus · HN ↗

      Word 1:0 for windows makes an excellent high speed wasm layout engine …
   4. exolymph · 1790703299 · focus · HN ↗

      While it is certainly now quicker and cheaper to do this, it is not clear that maintaining a copycat app as an ongoing concern has much more business value than it ever has. Take Photoshop. Pixelmator existed (acquired by Apple eventually). Photopea is still independent. What else... Sketch? Figma and Canva for the "unicorn startup" category. Procreate serving a different chunk of users. Is there room for many more new entrants in this category to gain significant marketshare? Is the ability to dupe Photoshop the actual blocker?

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