Until the 1970s, there were only four TV networks in the US. Then cable led to an explosion, from 28 in 1980, 79 in 1990 to well over a thousand today. Part of this was cheaper distribution via cable, but also because technology like computer video editing reduced the cost of production.

The flip side of this explosion was a fragmentation of audiences. The big four networks went from having 20-30% of the population and 80-90% of prime-time TV viewership to 20-30% prime time audience and low single digits of the population. This had all sorts of consequences, including politically as there is no longer a widely shared frame of reference, or someone like Walter Cronkite to tell Nixon the Vietnam War was over and lost.

The same fragmentation is coming for software via LLMs, for the same structural reasons. The SaaSpocalypse is overblown, because writing code is only a small part of the cost of producing software, developing requirements, integration, testing and maintenance are far larger components. Thus the dream of DIY enterprise software will remain that, a dream. Software will remain the preserve of companies that can manage the development process, but the dropping cost of coding will increase the number of software houses, and their addressable market will shrink, as it did for the big four TV networks. This will have an impact on the economics, as the cost of development and marketing, even if lowered by LLMs, will also be spread over a smaller customer base.