[dansingerman]

> That one definitely sounds true to me, the complexity of modern software definitely makes it harder to be competitive with big shops.

I disagree. If you want to make a competitive product to the products made by big shops, then that is true. However true innovation is often making something in a category that is new or not well served.

When Jobs/Wozniak made the Apple 1, they weren't competing with big shops mass producing other desktops, they were competing with the likes of MITS producing build-your-own computer kits.

Also the prevalence of on-demand services and APIs now mean you rarely have to make lots of complex software from the ground up. The secret is to find some value your software can deliver which competitors don't exist for, or don't do well.

If you look at the boom in solopreneurship and side projects it's self-evident to me it's never been easier.

Aside: the reason the 'cool hack' stories don't exist now is that they were often about using limited resources to do things that were seemingly difficult/impossible on the available platforms. So they were still examples of new software delivering value. But now as we are far less resource-constrained, and software as a whole is a lot more mature, these opportunities are a lot more scarce.