Disposable Software
For the first few years of my career, I drove home most days thinking, “I can’t believe they’re paying me to do this.” I love writing software. It is the joy of turning thought into reality.
Because of AI — tools like Canvas in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude — that joy is now available to everyone and opening a new category of software that can be purpose-built and thrown away when not needed.
Disposable software refers to small, self-contained applications that:
- Solve a single, discrete problem
- Avoid complex user management
- Avoid a persistent database
- Optionally uses AI via API
- Optionally pull data via public APIs
Because building software has traditionally been time and expertise intensive, we treated it as a precious resource: something to painstakingly plan, protect, and maintain.
But with AI, anyone with an idea can describe it, generate working code, and have a usable tool in minutes or hours.
It frees you to:
- Solve a problem that exists only this week
- Test a concept before investing in full development
- Build personal tools without waiting on a roadmap
- Prototype and share ideas quickly
When the cost of making software nears zero, what counts as worth building expands. More people will try ideas, learn from them, and let the rest go.