YouTube as a precursor
Could the history of YouTube indicate the path that AI is going to be follow for the generation of applications?
The argument here is that when YouTube started it opened up a way to produce content that did not previously exist. Up until this point it was either too difficult or too expensive for most people. The first videos were not professionally produced or aimed at a large consumer base. Over time the quality has improved and the consumer base has increased.
The same may be happening again, this time with vibe coding and the ability to quickly and cheaply produce niche apps. It is now possible to develop applications for a very small number of users that would not have previously been viable as it would have been too difficult or too expensive.
Could there be a similar upcoming explosion of content, where the content is not video but applications?
Will we see a store or a directory spring up that provides access to all these niche applications?
Will we see issues around curation and malicious or illegal code, similar to the need to curate videos posted?
At the moment, the quality of these applications is poor but over time with the advances in code creation quality this will become more and more like the improvements that have been seen in videos on YouTube.
We could see a service industry spring up around supporting these new creators. We could also see creators of these applications building large audiences of users.
We are at an interesting point in the future of software development.
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