Spinning Jenny & AI

In 1764 James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny - and fabric production went from slow & expensive to fast & cheap.

Suddenly:
→ The number of producers exploded
→ Differentiation got much harder
→ Trusted brands rose (Hermès - 1837, Levi's - 1853, Louis Vuitton - 1854)

Feels like a useful analogy for what might be about to happen to software.

When the means of production get commoditised and the market is flooded, buyers cry out for trusted brands. To signal quality and to get confident that the product they’re shelling out on won’t break/have a data leak at an embarrassing moment.

And I reckon - given the coming AI-powered explosion of low-quality products, and how mission-critical software is for many businesses - that we’re in the infancy of trusted software brands right now.

So if you're vibe coding without thinking of the brand you're building, you're the slop-shop tailor - whilst Levi Strauss is stitching the 501.