Vibecoding: When Everyone Can Build

Less Friction + More Vision

Just as the cloud lowered barriers to experimentation for developers a generation ago, vibecoding is now democratizing software creation for everyone else

A generation ago, cloud computing fundamentally changed how software was built. Developers could suddenly spin up infrastructure in minutes instead of months, radically lowering the cost of experimentation and unleashing innovation.

We're witnessing a similar transformation for software creation itself. "Vibecoding" – creating functional software through conversational prompts – isn't just making developers more efficient. It's putting software creation into the hands of anyone with an idea.

Less Friction

The vibecoding conversation is already happening. Andrew Chen recently explored fascinating implications - from youth-dominated software culture to adaptive software that self-modifies. His observations paint a compelling picture of where software creation is heading.

Here I'll focus on one part of that revolution: The reduced friction of building an app and corresponding expansion of WHO can build apps.

When we invested in StackBlitz (creators of Bolt.new), what caught our attention wasn't just that product's explosive growth. It was seeing who was building with it. Many users have little to no coding experience – they're domain experts, knowledge workers, and creative thinkers who previously couldn't bring software ideas to life without technical help.

The Rise of Disposable Apps

One trend that illustrates this is the emergence of "disposable apps" – purpose-built software created for immediate needs with little expectation of long-term use.

These are the GenAI equivalents of spreadsheets you might create for a specific analysis, use a handful of times, and never save. They solve immediate problems without the overhead traditionally associated with software development.

Consider this personal example from Replit CEO Amjad Masad:

Amjad’s doctor asked him to keep a sleep diary using a PDF form. As he noted, "It's hard to use, and if I print it out, I know I will lose it." His solution? He used an AI agent to transform a screenshot of the PDF into an interactive app with CSV download capability.

What's notable here isn't just the solution, but the economics of creating it. Masad, of course, has the technical skills to code this app traditionally – but it likely wouldn't have been worth the time investment for a single-use application. Vibecoding changes that calculation entirely. As he put it: "Personal software is a game-changer."

Other examples of these disposable apps include:

• A Customer Feedback Summarizer that extracts patterns from user feedback

• A One-Off Web Scraper that pulls specific data for a single analysis

• A Sanity Check Calculator for quick financial modeling

What makes these remarkable isn't their complexity – it's their casualness. Creating purpose-built software is becoming as frictionless as creating a spreadsheet.

Software Creation, Unbundled

Traditionally, software development required a complete skill "stack" – from imagination, to design and frontend, to backend and deployment. Vibecoding unbundles this stack, allowing people to focus solely on what they want to create.

We're seeing three distinct patterns emerge:

1. Professional developers clearing backlogs at unprecedented speed

2. Domain experts building sophisticated applications without writing code

3. Knowledge workers quickly assembling "disposable apps" for immediate needs

The last category represents perhaps the most profound shift of all. When anyone can create a lightweight collaboration tool or workflow automation without coding, we fundamentally change how organizations solve problems.

The Economics of Problem-Solving

Today, each one of us lives with countless small inefficiencies – paper cuts that we've become blind to. Email chains, clunky spreadsheets, and manual workarounds persist because building custom software for each small problem isn't worth the effort. But these paper cuts add up, silently draining productivity across teams.

Vibecoding changes the equation. Suddenly, it becomes practical to create purpose-built applications for small teams, short-term projects, or one-time tasks:

• A Contract Clause Extractor that pulls specific language from dozens of legal documents into a comparison table for quick review

• A Customer Onboarding Tracker that visualizes where new clients are in your setup process, with automated follow-up notifications

• A Meeting Cost Calculator that silently tracks attendance and time spent in recurring meetings, highlighting which gatherings are consuming disproportionate resources

None of these justify traditional development resources. All become practical when anyone can create them in minutes.

The Long Tail of Software Creation

The cloud revolution showed that when you dramatically lower barriers to experimentation, you don't just get more of the same – you get entirely new categories of products that weren't practical before.

Similarly, vibecoding will enable a long tail of specialized, niche software that could never justify traditional development resources – countless business processes that remain stubbornly manual today because creating custom software isn't worth the effort.

When anyone can create a disposable app as easily as they create a spreadsheet, these inefficiencies become addressable. The result won't be more major applications – it will be thousands of small, purpose-built tools that collectively transform how organizations operate.

What's Next for Software Creation

Complex systems will still require expertise and dedicated resources. But just as the cloud changed who could experiment with infrastructure, vibecoding is changing who can experiment with software creation.

The result won't just be more software – it will be different software, created by different people, for different reasons.

A generation ago, the cloud democratized infrastructure and unleashed innovation from developers. Today, vibecoding is democratizing creation itself and unleashing a similar wave from everyone else.

That shift – from software created by the few to software created by the many – opens doors that will transform how we work, create, and solve problems together.