Taste Is All That's Left

Re:Taste Is All That's Left by cobertos on Thursday August 06, 2026 @03:41PM (#49201387)

> The market timed you both with the same stopwatch and it did not see the difference. It cannot see the difference. Taste does not show up in the diff.

Doesn't that mean guaranteed failure in the market if you use taste as your guiding star? Therefore, there's really no way to enter the market anymore.

I don't know how you then ship software or monetise it...? The market will just clone it.

So... Don't share stuff publicly? Only share with closed groups? Where does this leave small-time software development...?

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Re:Taste Is All That's Left by nemomarx on Thursday August 06, 2026 @03:47PM (#49201455)

Someone can replicate any high fashion piece of clothing you make by hand. Maybe they could even make it better. Buyers still care about the origin, just in a pretty small market for it.

Maybe software moves to this after it's commoditized? Users might prefer an artisanal one vs ordering it off the shelf or using an agent themselves.

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Re:Taste Is All That's Left by mister_mort on Thursday August 06, 2026 @04:30PM (#49202085)

Well, this has been true (to a lesser extent) for decades. See "Worse Is Better" and all the subsequent essays and writing following on from that

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Re:Taste Is All That's Left by jopsen on Thursday August 06, 2026 @06:55PM (#49203751)

> Doesn't that mean guaranteed failure in the market if you use taste as your guiding star?

If taste is maintainability, etc.. the no quite the opposite.

The startup that has no taste and vibecodes mindlessly might end up with a codebase they can't maintain or refactor. A product that can't advance.

But honestly, I don't feel like the toil is gone. Landing code in big projects remain hard.

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