Anyone can make bread

I bake my own bread. It's better than anything I can buy, and I'm not being humble about that. I've put in the time and made lots of not-so-good bread while I learned, and now I have it down. 💪🏻

I read a post recently that's been sitting with me. The gist of it was, every few years someone announces that "anyone can build software now." In 2005 it was website builders. In 2015 it was app platforms. In 2025 it's AI. And every single time, demand for quality software goes UP, not down. Because the floor rises, and so does what people expect.

I think bread is actually a perfect way to think about this. Anyone can make bread. Flour, water, salt, yeast, you can have something edible by tonight. Making bread that's GOOD is harder. Making bread that's good every time, with the right crumb and the right crust and that doesn't go stale by day two, is a whole different thing. And making bread that's good every time AND that scales to feed a neighborhood, a city, on a schedule, without quality dropping.. that's somebody's entire career.

The easy version existing has never made the hard version less valuable. If anything, it raises what people expect from the hard version. Once everyone has had decent bread, mediocre bread stops being acceptable. The bar moves. Maybe that wasn't the OG poster's point, but that's what I gathered.

I think software is in the same spot. The tools are great, and the floor is higher than it's ever been. Someone can spin up an app in an afternoon now. But the moment that app needs to be fast, or reliable, or handle a real user load, or not lose someone's data, or work on the 14th edge case nobody thought about.. you're back in real engineering territory. And users notice. If building is "so easy now," why does your app crash? Why is it slow?

The low-effort version of anything gets cheaper and more available over time. The thoughtful version gets more valuable, because the contrast is sharper. Good bread tastes more like good bread when you've had the other kind.

Needless to say, I'm not worried about the field, and I'm not buying store-bought bread (or a smartphone for that matter, I love my flip phone) or letting a tool do my thinking for me anytime soon. The bar is moving up, and I'd rather be the person who can clear it. The slow way is the whole point. I like the meaningful friction, especially in my work.