jiacai2050
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3 weeks ago fanyi by qwen2
要了解软件如何改变，我们可以从研究技术如何改变其他行业中受益。历史往往会回响，如果你倾听。
在互联网之前，媒体的行为非常不同——创作内容很昂贵。您需要支付人员来制作内容、对其进行编辑并进行分发。由于创建内容的成本很高，因此它必须赚钱。消费者为此付费——报纸、杂志、书籍、有线电视和点播内容。沃伦·巴菲特曾对报纸情有独钟——谁会不喜欢一个本地垄断动力的可预测订阅业务呢？
当互联网发生时，媒体公司将其视为接触更广泛受众并减少分发成本的方式。但没人预料到的是，互联网不仅将分发成本降至零，还将创建内容的成本也推至了零。用户生成的内容繁荣发展起来，并且当内容不再需要赚钱时，它也不再有这个需求。内容不再需要赚钱会如何表现？在经济约束放松的情况下，会引发一个寒武纪爆发——你只需拍一张咖啡杯的照片并发布到数十万或根本没有观众的平台上，市场价格依然能够得到满足。这产生了一大波无法合理消费的内容。这促使我们开发出用于引导注意力、商品化内容和有效导航的产品——我们现在称之为用户生成内容平台。
这些平台完全颠覆了媒体公司。作为一家媒体公司，您与用户争夺相同的关注度，但成本却更高。您雇佣的每一名员工都在创作内容，您就越容易被用户生成的内容平台左右。结构上，投资于媒体已不再是一种创造价值的有效策略，价值创造已经全部转移到控制分发权的平台上。
软件是昂贵的创造物。您需要支付人员来创建、维护和分发它。由于软件的创建成本很高，因此它必须赚钱。我们为此付费——软件许可、SaaS（软件即服务）、按人头定价等。软件历来拥有令人羡慕的架构利润率：高达90%的边际利润和零分销成本。
软件昂贵是因为开发者是昂贵的翻译者 —— 他们将人类语言翻译成计算机语言，反之亦然。大语言模型（LLM）已经证明在这方面出类拔萃，并将推动创建软件的成本降至零。当软件不再需要赚钱时会如何表现？我们将会经历一个内容上的寒武纪爆发，就像之前所发生的那样。
《时尚》并不是被另一家时尚媒体公司取代的，而是被10,000位影响者取代了。Salesforce不会被另一个大型CRM系统取代。它将被一组动态服务于相同意图和痛点的事物所取代。软件公司将被以同样方式取代媒体公司的方式取代，从而引发了一套新的平台诞生，这些平台控制着分发权。
SaaS（软件即服务）、年度经常性收入（ARR）、魔法数字——这些都是理解软件业务建设老模式的简写描述，在那个创造软件的成本成为护城河的情况下。长时间以来，无形之手在软件领域一直保持静默，但LLM的到来将迅速带来其熟悉的纠正力量。如今学习计算机科学就如同20世纪90年代末学习新闻学一样具有前瞻性和重要性。
To understand how software will change, we can benefit from studying how technology has changed other industries. History tends to rhyme, if you listen.
Before the internet, media behaved very differently—it was expensive to create. You had to pay people to make content, edit it, and distribute it. Because content was expensive to create, it had to make money. And consumers paid—newspapers, magazines, books, cable, and pay per view. Warren Buffett famously loved newspapers—and who wouldn’t love a predictable subscription business with local monopolistic dynamics?
When the internet happened, media companies viewed it as a way to reach broader audiences and reduce their distribution costs. But what no one saw coming was that the internet not only reduced distribution costs to zero, but it also drove the cost of creating content to zero. User generated content flourished, and when content doesn’t cost anything to create, it no longer has to make money. How does content behave when it no longer has to make money? The relaxation of this economic constraint led to a Cambrian explosion–you can take a picture of a cup of coffee, post it to a million views or none at all and the market clearing price is still met. This produced a deluge of content that none of us could reasonably consume. This necessitated products to direct attention, merchandise this content, and route us effectively–we understand these now as user-generated content platforms.
These platforms completely T-boned media companies. As a media company, you were competing for the same attention of users, but with a strictly higher COGS. The more people you had on your payroll that were creating content, the more exposed you were to being flanked by user-generated content platforms. Structurally, investing in media has been a losing value proposition ever since and value creation has shifted entirely to the platforms that control distribution.
Software is expensive to create. You have to pay people to create it, maintain it, and distribute it. Because software is expensive to create, it has to make money. And we pay for it–software licenses, SaaS, per seat pricing, etc. Software margins have historically been an architectural envy–90+% margins and zero marginal cost of distribution.
Software is expensive because developers are expensive. They are skilled translators–they translate human language into computer language and vice-versa. LLMs have proven themselves to be remarkably efficient at this and will drive the cost of creating software to zero. What happens when software no longer has to make money? We will experience a Cambrian explosion of software, the same way we did with content.
Vogue wasn’t replaced by another fashion media company, it was replaced by 10,000 influencers. Salesforce will not be replaced by another monolithic CRM. It will be replaced by a constellation of things that dynamically serve the same intent and pain points. Software companies will be replaced the same way media companies were, giving rise to a new set of platforms that control distribution.
SaaS, ARR, magic numbers–these are all shorthand to understand the old model of business building in software, one where the expense associated with creating software was a moat. The invisible hand has been stayed in software for a long time, but LLMs will usher in its swift, familiar corrective force. Majoring in computer science today will be like majoring in journalism in the late 90’s.