An underappreciated implication of vibe coding is that software isn’t limited to “apps” anymore. It can be more like content.
Put another way, bespoke software has become so cheap, we will increasingly “hire” software to do the “jobs to be done” like communicating, entertaining, teaching, and persuading that we have relied on content to fulfill.
Where a food blogger might have written a recipe post, they can now deliver a meal planning app based on their recipe catalog. Where a travel vlogger might have recorded a video about a destination, they can now deliver an interactive travel guide. Where a tech expert might have written a buyer’s guide of the latest phones, they can now deliver a recommendation tool based on the reader’s budget and typical use cases.
To be fair, creator built apps have already been happening at the “high end” of the creator economy, or where the creator was already a developer. In fact, this thesis hits especially home for me since some of my best content (like GPT-2 in Vanilla JavaScript) already is software. But vibe coding will democratize the dilemma I have faced: do I ship a video or do I ship an app?
Historically, content was how expertise found its audience. But expertise is really just taste, and taste is what vibe coding runs on. Content creators of the future won’t ask “what should I write?” They’ll ask “what should I build?”
P.S. A logical next question is what will they use to build that software. Does the market need a “Lovable+Wordpress” that lets creators manage both their software and legacy content? But that’s a post (or software) for another day.