Perhaps you could, but you probably always could've built a clone of any SaaS app you wanted, it's just become faster.
I'm reminded of the infamous Dropbox Hacker News comment[1]. If you're looking at stuff like this thinking "what's the point? I could just make that myself" then you're not the target audience in the same sort of way Ikea isn't trying to sell stuff to carpenters.
This is true even when the barrier to entry in making these sorts of systems has gotten way lower.
The core idea of modernity's tendency to take a Good Thing and chop it up into tiny pieces and bind it into Something Resembling Good Thing[1] hit me hard. I've long felt a discomfort with things that pretend to be other things[2]; just be the thing that you are! There's something particularly macabre about the fake version of the thing being built from the ground up bones of the actual thing.
Also: the Incas invented a natural freeze drying method‽ Totally tracks that would lead to a big military advantage before there were many effective ways to preserve food. But also like, what? It took ~500 years for us to rediscover that.
1. examples from the article: McNuggets, American cheese, instant coffee, deli ham, Pringles, particle board, sheetrock, video compilations, gig economy jobs
2. like fake window shutters on houses, brick siding that's meant to look like the house is made of brick, artificial food dyes, the fiberglass shell on the outside of cars, things painted look like they're a different color.
I've been working on https://fileinbox.com full time for about the last five years. It's been pretty consistently making about $4k/month (I haven't been spending much money, so don't need a lot to go full time), and recently focusing more on marketing has bumped it up to $6.5k MRR and growing. It's amazing. I get to work on whatever I want, I get to take as much time off as I want whenever I want, and I've never felt like I wasn't doing meaningful work.
This business has been a huge source of security in my life that's freed up a bunch of time for me to focus on more meaningful life improvements, like diving into hobbies (outdoor climbing, improv and standup comedy, musical theatre, travel, and other more fleeting passions) and optimizing wellness (sleep, exercise, meditation, relationships). I think it's the best possible way to make money.
I got started by stumbling on patio11's side-project-turned-full-time-business Bingo Card Creator. I remember reading about how he was able to quit his shitty job and just work on his Rails app that generated bingo cards and thinking "well shoot, I could do that."
I saw that Patrick was in a community of people doing a similar thing that all go to the same conference: Microconf. Tickets were pricy for me right out of college (I think they were around $800 at the time), but I promised myself I'd buy a ticket with my first $800 in profit so I could fly out and thank him in person.
I had a high level game plan for how I was going to be working on a side project like Bingo Card Creator while I was working as a software developer. Part of that plan was needing to figure out how to accept credit card payments online. I found Stripe and thought it was the coolest API ever, so I picked up one of the side projects I'd made in college that had a bunch of people bugging me with emails asking for new features. I implemented the features, but added some extra code that put them behind a paywall. They'd have to pay me to use features I'd already coded, the fools! Bwahaha.
I was pretty surprised when—the same week I was finalizing my very first Real Job out of college—that side project started making $300/day. I thought it was a fluke, but it kept rolling in. I didn't do any marketing or have a business plan or know who my customers were. I'd built a thing for myself and other people apparently wanted it too.
I bought my microconf ticket three weeks later. Patrick and I have been friends since :)
My path is totally not the route I'd recommend. I think I got pretty lucky with stumbling on product market fit. If you're reading this and are interested in doing something similar, I've learned a lot more about what I did accidentally right from taking notes on all the Microconf talks[1] and chatting with more people in the Microconf community that have made similar businesses. I'd love to help coach you through how to build one of these puppies for yourself! The classic mistake I see people making is obsessing over an idea instead of a group of people with a problem you can help solve. Your idea almost doesn't matter at all and it's probably not even a good idea. Focus on who you're helping and the things they complain about instead.
PS: I go into a little more detail about how I got started on Episode 23 of the OK Productive Podcast[2].
Oh hey, my wife and I just started doing this kind of thing.
We bought a 2002 23-foot RV for $15k and renovated it to nicer furnishings than our $1.2k/month apartment near Dallas where she was working.
Now we live in it full time! We're only a month in, but it's been a blast, and something I can see doing for the foreseeable future. Every new city we visit we can explore at our own pace, while spending less than we would be living back home, and living in much more beautiful areas (I'm writing from an RV park near Lake Placid a five minute walk from the coolest waterfall I've ever seen).
When you can work remotely, there's not a lot of reasons to stay in one place.
Schools just hire more administrators and build nicer gyms.