I think the problem is concentration. AI now absorbs almost all of the oxygen from every category. A story about new chips becomes an AI story. Cloud pricing becomes an AI story. Even personal projects get pulled into the same orbit.
If I am archiving PBs of data for 10+ years, I don't want to rely on a WASM interpreter being available and performant in the future just to read a file. I want a dead-simple, heavily documented byte specification like Parquet.
Additionally, putting the decoding logic inside an WASM binary introduces an active execution layer into what should be a cold storage.
It's a selection bias issue. The categories you have listed are essentially web services wrapped in an app shell. Of course they need the internet. Consider these examples:
- Photo/Video editors - Snapsheed, Lightroom, Video trimmers etc.
We (software engineers) get better outcomes from the same algorithms by improving data flow, constraints, instrumentation etc. (Better) prompting, retrieval, context engineering etc seem like the LLM equivalents.
The model weights haven't changed but the system is making more use of the capabilities already present in the model.
I've accumulated a bunch of old website archives over the years. The funny thing is the ugly HTML dumps have been more useful than the "perfect" archive.
It's one of the reasons I've become a bigger fan of RSS over time. A feed from 10-ish years ago is often more usable today than a carefully preserved (application) website.
I've shifted to a "slow code" approach with AI, treating it more like a design partner than a code generator.
I mostly do TDD with TypeScript. I write the test, write the code myself (sometimes with the help of LLM), and then hand it to the LLM. Instead of asking it to write things for me, I use it to find edge cases, check if it's leak-proof, and verify efficiency.
For architecture questions, I debate with it for a while. I almost never ask for code without conversing 4-5 times first to push back on its assumptions. It's the best rubber-ducking partner I've had.
Me: Senior Full-Stack Engineer with 10+ years of experience building high-traffic web applications and scalable backend systems. I've worked exclusively with US-based companies.
My blog: nabraj(dot)com
Looking for: Senior full-stack, backend, or platform engineering roles.
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada. Open to remote US opportunities.
This is the reason. I have just been vibe-coding my way for a few months now, got almost all the tools (except Browser and Mail) that I use daily, designed by me (with the help of LLM).
I built a tiny Notepad clone in ~5 minutes using an LLM: open/save, plain text, no surprises.
Lately I've been doing the same for other small utilities. Roughly half the little tools I use are ones I generated and kept because they’re predictable and easy to audit.
The point isn't replacing built-ins; it's reducing dependence on shifting defaults. I want to care less about what the software/os vendor changes this time.
It's been fantastic. The mouse puts my hand in a natural "handshake" position, which has cut down on the wrist strain I used to get after long hours of work or browsing.