# Software is Not Dead

Pieter Levels thinks we've entered the era where **everyone** builds their own software.

By Jon C. Phillips · November 8, 2026 · https://joncphillips.com/software-is-not-dead/

Pieter posted a short take recently that a lot of people in my corner of the internet nodded along to. I spent this year doing exactly that, and I'm still paying for it.

I get why it resonated though. I also think it skips the most expensive part of owning software, which is everything that happens after you build it.

## The Tweet

He wrote it in [two lines](https://x.com/joncphillips/status/2116897788231356563).

> Software is dead
>
> It's now the era of personal software and everyone just builds what they need whenever they need it I think

I think he's partly right, and the things he's right about are totally real.

Personal software is a thing now, and I'm living proof. I've already written about [the subscriptions I replaced](https://joncphillips.com/no-natural-limit/) with my own tools this year, and the list has kept growing since then. The newest one is a little dashboard for the smart lights at home, and it took me less than a day.

**I love them.** I use them every day, and they do exactly what I want because I'm the only person they have to please.

So I'm with him on the first part. More people are building more software for themselves than ever before. I'm all for that.

The second part is where I get off the train though. "Everyone" builds what they need? Software is dead?

Building it was never really the expensive part.

## 14 Dependabot Alerts

I touched on what it costs to own software when [a free Lightroom clone showed up](https://joncphillips.com/fork-you/), and my own tools have kept proving the point ever since.

A few weeks ago I spent an entire evening working through 14 Dependabot alerts across my projects, one pull request at a time. I would have spent that evening on the couch if I were still paying for the software, because someone else's team would have handled it.

That evening was one of many. Here's what they've needed from me this year.

- Dependency updates, which arrive whether or not I have time for them
- Security patches for libraries I'd forgotten I was using
- A fix when a third-party API changed its response format without warning
- Backups, and the slightly sick feeling of wondering whether they actually work
- Server bills and domain renewals, which are small until you add them up
- A late-night debugging session when an OS update broke something that had worked for months

None of that shows up in the damn demo. A tweet about building an app in an afternoon never includes the weekend six months later when it stops working and you're the only person on earth who can fix it cause, hey, you own the project now.

## The Recipes Are Free Too

Every recipe you could ever want is free online. Millions of videos will walk you through cooking anything, step by step, at no cost.

And yet Americans spent more on food away from home in 2024 than on groceries. According to USDA data, [food away from home hit $1.539 trillion](https://www.fb.org/market-intel/from-grocery-carts-to-doorsteps-2024-food-spending), while food at home came in at $1.091 trillion.

That's roughly 58 cents of every food dollar going to someone else doing the cooking. **You don't hear anyone say that cooking is dead though.**

People can cook. Most of them, most of the time, would rather pay someone so they don't have to. Myself included. Yet, I cook every single day.

During Covid, people discovered they could bake some bread. You've seen the TikToks I'm sure. Guess what... grocery stores still sell an insane amount of bread. Why? Because most people would rather spend $5 on a good loaf of bread than spend an afternoon and a jar of sourdough starter making one at home.

**Software works the same way.**

The tools to build it are now nearly free and nearly universal, and the vast majority of people will still pay someone else to build it, run it, secure it, and answer the email when it inevitably breaks.

They want the thing to work. That's the whole wish.

Software is not dead. **Shitty software is on its way out though**, because when anyone can build a decent version in a weekend, nobody's going to keep paying for a bad one.

## Who Fixes It

The real question with any piece of software is who takes care of it once it exists. Laid out side by side, the difference is stark.

| When this happens | Paid software | Personal software |
| --- | --- | --- |
| A security hole gets disclosed | The vendor patches it | You patch it, if you hear about it |
| A dependency ships a breaking change | The vendor's team handles it | You handle it, on your evening |
| The server goes down at 2am | Someone's on call | You find out in the morning |
| Your data needs backing up | It's part of the service | You set it up and hope it works |
| You go on vacation for two weeks | Nothing changes | Everything waits for you |
| Something breaks and you're stuck | You email support | You are support |

Every row on the right is something I've personally done this year.

For a developer who enjoys this stuff, that column is fine. Some of it is even fun.

For a dentist, a wedding planner, a restaurant owner, or most of the photographers on [my newsletter list](https://dailyphototips.com/), that column is a list of reasons to keep paying for software.

## A Bubble Problem

I think part of what's happening is a bubble effect, and I'm in the bubble too.

Pieter's audience is builders, and so is mine. When you spend all day around people who ship apps for fun, it starts to feel like everyone ships apps for fun.

Step outside that circle and the picture changes very quickly.

> The vast majority of people have zero interest in building and maintaining their own software. They don't want a repo. They don't want to think about where the database lives.

**They want to open an app, have it work, and close it again.**

It's also worth pointing out that his own income comes from people paying for software he builds and maintains. That's a pretty good argument against software being dead, and he's one of the best examples of it.

## Dead Things Don't Grow 15%

If software were dying, you'd expect to see it in the money first.

Gartner's latest forecast has worldwide software spending reaching about [$1.44 trillion in 2026](https://gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-04-22-gartner-forecasts-worldwide-it-spending-to-grow-13-point-5-percent-in-2026-totaling-6-point-31-trillion-dollars), up 15.1% from last year. That growth is happening in the same year everyone discovered they could vibe code a to-do app.

Some of that software spend is AI spending, sure. But it's still businesses and people writing checks for software someone else runs. That's the exact opposite of dying.

## Should You Build It?

Personal software is great for some things and a terrible idea for others. Before replacing something you pay for, I'd run it through a few questions.

- Does it hold data you can't afford to lose?
- Does it touch money, customers, or other people?
- Would a day of downtime actually hurt?
- Is there a company whose entire job is doing this well?

The more of those that come back yes, the more you should keep paying someone else to do the cooking.

Take a password manager. Rebuilding something like 1Password in your spare time is completely doable now, and an agent could probably get you a working version in a weekend.

Then you'd own the encryption, the syncing across every device, the recovery when you lose your phone, and the quiet knowledge that one bug in your code could leak every password you have.

**I wouldn't touch that job for anything.**

My own tools land on the other side of that line, which is why I'd build every one of them again. A time tracker or a lights dashboard can go down for a day without hurting anyone.

When one of them breaks, I lose an evening and fix it. For those particular tools, that's a trade I'm happy to make.

## I'll Keep Cooking

None of this means I'm giving up my homemade tools. I'll keep fixing them when they break, the same way I'll keep cooking dinner most nights.

But I also pay for email hosting, website hosting, password management, backups, and a dozen other things I could theoretically build myself.

I've been building for the web for over 20 years and have an AI that writes code all day, and I still don't want those particular jobs.

Software got a lot more personal this year for a small group of people who happen to enjoy cooking for themselves. Everyone else is still going to eat out, and that market is very much alive.