[kriro]

I'd actually say the opposite is the case. B2B (even SaaS) is probably the most robust when it comes to AI resistance. The described "in house vibe coded SaaS replacement" does not mirror my experience in B2B at all. The B2B software mindset I've encountered the most is "We'll pay you so we don't have to wrestle with this and can focus on what we do. We'll pay you even more if we worry even less." which is basically the opposite of...let's have someone inhouse vibe code and push to production. B2B is usually fairly conservative.

[xhrpost]

Reminds me of a blog post a while back saying that gigabit fiber at home would lead to everyone running their own email server.

[isk517]

There was no chance that everyone would be running their own email server, but if it wasn't for the lack of IPv6 adaptation a plug and go home email server solution would probably see a decent amount of use. I'd bet we'd already be seeing it as a feature in most mid-ranged home routers by now.

[jayd16]

The email server bit directly correlates, too. Will everyone vibe-ops their own email server using AI? Of course not.

[andix]

What a weird take. I was running my own email server 25 years ago on a 512 kbit ADSL line. No problem at all, would even be enough bandwidth today for most messages.

(Back then email still worked from residential IP addresses, and wasn't blocked by default)

[onurcel]

I agree with you. In B2B SaaS you don't sell the software, you sell your expertise in a specific domain and the responsability you take for owning that expertise. The fact that the development costs are nearly zero will make them more valuable and more protifable

[mkoubaa]

Development has always been a small fraction of B2B SaaS expenses after the first couple of years anyways

[stronglikedan]

B2B is a large corp is like you describe, but it's very different in SMBs, and there are many, many more SMBs.

[MrDresden]

My experience is that SMBs are generally not run by people who feel confident doing any kind of self managed IT.

No amount of LLM usage is going to change them into full stack vibe coders who moonlight as sysadmins. I just don't see it happening.

Not until, that is, a new generation, that has grown accustomed to the tech, takes over.

Until then the current SMBs will for the most part fulfill their IT needs from SaaS businesses (of which I think there will be more due to LLMs lowering the barrier for those of us who feel confident in our coding and sysadmin skills already).

[colechristensen]

I'm considering SaaS replacements with in house code in situations where my general thoughts are "how can this possibly be the pricing for this?" which is not uncommon.

[monero-xmr]

Well before vibe coding, tons of open source software existed (and exists) to replace SaaS. With lots of features and knobs and real communities. But I still often pay for SaaS because managing it is a headache. Some human has to do it. I can pay the human or I can pay the company. I really don’t see how vibe coded toys can replace real battle tested SaaS products. A better explanation is the bubble in PE ratio is deflating and it’s happening all over, regressing to the mean. AI is a convenient explanation for everything

[brikym]

Maybe you are right and the companies do want to pay and not worry about these problems. But now they have a lot more SaaS options to chose from. The incumbent companies like Salesforce and Atlassian have less of a moat. Maybe they'll keep the power users but if a customer is only using 80% of the feature set there is new competition. Competition might come in the form of a startup but it can also come from existing SaaS companies expanding into adjacent domains. Canva now does docs. Notion does email. etc

[ActionHank]

Also, it is my experience that exec and boards favour safe and well known B2B partners over in house. It's a more publicly defensible approach that gives them an out if things go wrong and shareholders get upset.

[baxtr]

For big corporations at least prices of SaaS are rarely an issue. Issues are: we don’t have the time to introduce a new tool, what about our processes, we don’t have the right people.

[vonneumannstan]

So how much Constellation Software stock are you buying since the market seems to think they are dead in the water after a 50% drawdown?

[kachapopopow]

hard disagree, several b2b categories are going extinct because AI just completely replaced them.

I mean if we want recent examples just look at tailwindui since it's technically a SaaS.

[mbesto]

> we want recent examples just look at tailwindui since it's technically a SaaS.

This is a terrible example. Show me someone ripping out their SAP ERP or SalesForce CRM system where they're paying $100k+ for a vibe coded alternative and I'll believe this overall sentiment.

[mikeocool]

TailwindUI isn't really what I'd consider SaaS -- it was a buy once and download software product.

That means to keep making money they need keep selling new people. According to them, their only marketing channel was the Tailwind docs, AI made it so not nearly as many people needed to visit the tailwind docs.

If they had gone with the subscription SaaS model, they'd probably be a little better off, as they would have still had revenue coming in from their existing users.

[re-thc]

> I mean if we want recent examples just look at tailwindui since it's technically a SaaS.

How is it in any way B2B? At most B2C + freelancers / individuals / really small SME.

It didn't have any clues a med/large B2B would look for e.g. SSO, SOC2 and other security measures. It doesn't target reusability that I as a B would want. The provided blocks never work together. There aren't reusable components.

Tailwind UI or now Tailwind Plus is more like vibe coding pre-AI.

[codegeek]

Sorry but tailwindui is not a SAAS. There is no service or hosting. You buy a coded template once and then receive updates. It is totally not the same as a critical B2B SAAS that is running 24-7 on the vendor's servers providing real support and service.

[no_wizard]

TailwindUI unfortunately sits in a position of being an easy to disrupt business with current AI.

Now attempt the same with Zoom, I suspect vibe coding will fall down on a project that complex to fit the mental model of a single engineer maintained a widely used tool

[nozzlegear]

Perhaps the case for premium CSS SaaS businesses, I guess (which seems particularly primed for disruption even pre-AI), but there are many more robust B2B categories out there that aren't literal code + docs as a service.

[jabroni_salad]

There is a paradigm shift but personally I like to zoom out a little:

It used to be that your new b2b product has to try and displace a spreadsheet. Now it has to displace an agent.

[llmslave]

how dont people understand? if you have a VC funded b2b saas, you need to charge huge margins for the investors to get a return. now, small teams can vibe code a replacement and charge 90% less money. AI is going to kill saas margins.

i literally cannot understand why people keep repeating that non tech companies will build their own software, thats not the bear case for saas

[AstroBen]

Atlassian: surviving since 2002 because no-one could previously build a kanban board or project management app

[ehutch79]

Yeah.... The code isn't the hard part. That's not where the value is.

This hard part when you're doing in house stuff is getting a good spec, ongoing support, and long term maintenance.

I've gone trough development of a module with a stakeholder, got a whole spec, confirmed it, coded it, launched it, and was then told it didn't work at all like what they needed. It was literally what they told me... I've said 'yes we can make that report, what specific fields do you need' and gotten blank stares.

Even if you're lucky and the original stakeholder and the code are on the same page, as soon as you get a coworkers 'wouldnt it be nice if...' you're going to have a bad day if it's hand coded, vibecoded, or outsourced...

This has always been the problem, it's why no-code never _really_ worked, even if the tech was perfectly functional.

[chiffre01]

The reality is anyone generate useful code with an AI agent now. Dores in accounting can now automate all her spreadsheets in a single afternoon.

Not trying to hype AI, but we are in an interesting transitional period.

[apsurd]

The accounting saas dores presumably uses doesn't "automate spreadsheets" as its core value prop.

related: i'm thinking these vibe coded solutions are revealing to everyone how important and under appreciated good UX is when it comes to implicit education of any given thing. Like given this complex process, the UX is holding your hand while educating you through a workflow. this stuff is part of software engineering yet it isn't "code".

[echelon]

I, on the other hand, can't wait to fire every single B2B subscription we've got.

B2B SaaS is a VULN. They get bought out, raise prices, fail. And then you have extremely large amounts of unplanned spend and engineering to get around them.

I remember when we replaced the feature flags and metrics dashboards with SignalFX and LaunchDarkly. Both of those went sour. SignalFx got bought out and quadrupled their insane prices. LaunchDarkly promised the moon, but their product worked worse than our in-house system and we spent nearly a year with a couple of dedicated headcount engineering workarounds.

Atlassian, you name it - it's all got to go.

I just wish I could include AWS in this list. Compute and infra needs to be as generic as water.

If you're working at SaaS, find an exit. AI is coming for you. Now's a great time to work on the AI replacement of your product.

[robocat]

> And then you have extremely large amounts of unplanned spend and engineering to get around them

You get the same shocks with internal teams, just from other causes. And you have to manage them.

I'm sure you've only ever seen brilliant software created by internal software teams?

[falloutx]

> And then you have extremely large amounts of unplanned spend and engineering to get around them.

I have no idea how you are spending "large amounts" of unplanned spend on Saas products. Every company I worked for had Saas subscription costs being under 1% of capex. Unless you add AWS, which is actually "large amounts" but good luck vibe coding that.

[podnami]

If you’re working in engineering, find an exit. AI is coming for you.