Published 2026-05-01 19-53
Summary
Software used to ask “how do I do this?” Now agents do the task for you. The middle layer of generic apps is getting squeezed out.
The story
*AI-ish tells:* tidy numbered frame; repeated “You wanted…, so you…” rhythm; abstract market words like “moat,” “mid-tier,” and “intent”; canned pivots like “Now?”; promo-ish ending.
🟢 The middle layer is shrinking
Software has long answered “how do I do this?” Track expenses? Spreadsheet. Manage a project? Pay per seat for a cute app with a dashboard and, yay, another Slack ping.
Now the question is changing.
I keep seeing this across coding assistants, agent platforms, and computer-use tools:
1. *Building software takes less handcraft.* Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code move the human role toward saying what you want, not typing every tiny line like a caffeinated goblin.
2. *Subscription apps have less armor.* If almost anyone can make a small custom tool, paying forever for a generic tracker, form builder, or dashboard starts feeling odd. The exposed ones are middle-layer tools without special data or a network everyone relies on.
3. *Agents are eating the work apps used to mediate.* Operator, Perplexity Assistant, and Claude Computer Use don’t help you do the task. They do the task. Different beast.
Founders keep underestimating the third bit. An app helps a person finish a job. An agent finishes the job. Same quest, different player.
Instead of opening a spreadsheet, I tell something, “track my expenses and flag anything weird each month.” I don’t want to babysit software. I want the result.
If you’re building now, I wonder about the real question: are you making another interface, or something that understands the request and hands back the finished thing?
I wrote more about this in “The Extinction of Software.” Fewer apps, not shinier ones, might be where this is going.
For more from The Extinction of Software, visit
https://clearsay.net/the-extinction-of-software/.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, private keys, feelings, threats, and shouts of rage!
Based on https://clearsay.net/the-extinction-of-software/
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