Spreadsheets used to be homework before the homework. Agents skip the middleman. Generic SaaS gets squeezed first; deep moats survive.
The story
AI tells:
– Same shape repeats: setup, example, tidy takeaway.
– Soft phrases drain punch: “worth thinking about,” “tend to have.”
– The SaaS list reads pitch-deck clean.
– Repeated abstractions: “intent and outcome,” “floor,” “gap.”
– The promo ending gets less human.
Rewrite:
🟢 When the App Becomes the Middleman
I used to open a spreadsheet to track expenses. Pick the template. Format columns. Wrestle formulas like a tiny office goblin. Label categories. Then forget the whole thing for three weeks. The app was supposed to help me get a result. Instead, it became homework before the homework. Yay.
Software has lived in the gap between “what I want” and “what I get” for decades. Pick a tool, learn it, poke buttons, hope the output behaves. Software answered *how* to do the thing.
Agents make “how” less interesting. I can tell an assistant, “Track my spending and flag strange charges each month,” and skip the spreadsheet circus. No template. No columns. No formula cage match.
If you’re building SaaS, I wonder where your app sits in this. The old protective wall was simple: building software took skill and time. Coding assistants are lowering that barrier fast. The middle tier – generic project trackers, form builders, internal dashboards, yet another CRM – gets wet first. The survivors I’m watching have deep network effects, data nobody else has, or regulatory lock-in. Generic gets squeezed first. Not because it’s “bad.” Because it has fewer roots.
Users are moving from operating tools to instructing agents. Operator, Perplexity Assistant, and Claude Computer Use are inching toward doing the work the app was *meant* to help with. Software used to sit between intent and outcome. Agents are yanking out the middle layer. Rude, but efficient.
I wrote a longer piece on the four phases of this, from coding assistants making software easier to build to apps becoming
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