kbiessy
Ultimately, in my opinion, this “make or buy” issue goes back to the age-old debate about how companies choose to adapt to the processes already built into the software they purchase. The companies that will “make” are probably the ones that would have developed custom solutions at some point anyway.
For a service firm billing days, cutting the team in half because the shipping pace is the same would clearly breaks the business. So nobody there is in a hurry to measure outcomes, and the client’s procurement team compares day rates anyway. At least up to now.
The cost of writing the tool is mostly gone, on that I agree. The cost of owning it hasn’t moved that much I think. If I look after the software stack of a couple of small companies I know, the custom tools are those that end up hurting the most. Nobody remembers it was custom made, until the API call breaks, or the person who built it leaves. I think the cost of maintenance is particularly high.
An afternoon build doesn’t fix long terme maintenance, nor does it provide functional knowledge. I think generalists stand to gain a lot from AI, but there will still be a huge role for experts to guide and maintain software in the future.