> And they’re charging 50–100/month to do what anyone could replicate for pennies. It’s not just overpriced — it’s dishonest. The entire business model relies on the user not knowing how simple it really is.
But this is general SaaS model. Wrap thing that are being done by lower level software such as FFmpeg and expose them in a nice GUI ready for use by people who are not technical.
So what can change in the example above is the amount of markup going down, not the SaaS service going away entirely.
If vibe coding works well enough, maybe the entire saas industry can be disrupted out of existence.
We'll replace bland, uninspired, rent-seeking but convenient ffmpeg-as-a-service SaaS tools at a 100x markup by automatically generated, vibe coded tools you can let an AI produce and host in some centralized cloud location at a 10x markup. Thus advancing the inexorable process of disintermediation by technology, turning everyone into a consumer and cutting out middle men everywhere.
Until it's only you and Jensen Huang sitting on top of a pile of your cash, shitting out NVIDIA cards like the sandworms in Dune shit out Spice.
Nah, I expect vibe-coding tooling will soon enough be directing users to use “partner” services and away from free tools. The non-techie users won’t know ffmpeg exists, they’ll just know about the video-oriented SaaS subscriptions the chatbot suggests when they ask.
But this is general SaaS model. Wrap thing that are being done by lower level software such as FFmpeg and expose them in a nice GUI ready for use by people who are not technical.
So what can change in the example above is the amount of markup going down, not the SaaS service going away entirely.