The future of launching
We are a maximum of 2 years away from the mainstream population being able to convert ideas to shipped services/products in minutes with just natural language. For example, I can just ask "Make me a dog walking app in NZ, a landing page for it, post about it on Reddit, Twitter, and Instagram, and reach out to 100 pet influencers in the area"... And this will be executed without issues (honestly just the fact that there is a Zappier ChatGPT plugin already allows you to set this process up in a few hours).
Let's discuss what are the impacts of this on our industry.
The impact will be more of the same as it is today.
Tons of product focused startups failing to get traction.
That being said, normally it takes solopreneurs & indiehackers 3 or 4 failed attempts before they realize that marketing is actually the key to succeeding. Here's hoping that once what you posted comes to pass, they'll realize it immediately.
I think the bar for higher-quality products will be increased. Poor product will not gain any attention.
If building and distributing products is no longer alpha, unique ideas will continue to be.
I also wonder if there's a pendulum force coming here. In the early phase everyone is launching and flooding the space with their generic version of XYZ. Once people realize that there's massive amounts of competition doing the same thing as they are (or competing for the finite attention of their audience, they realize they have little alpha and give up (or never even start).
There's obviously many other facets and dynamics that all interplay, but just a thought that came to mind.
I tested your claim using GPT4
TEST 1: "Make me an iphone app to use the live text api data capture into a spreadsheet". Reply was 7 steps that I would need to learn rapidly to apply as involved both xcode and swiftUI. I had already watched apple dev on the api and know its not hard to code if I was comfortable with xcode.
TEST 2: "Make me an app like Citizen Scientist by The Ocean Cleanup. Except I want to be able to map my own captures to data-sets and export as JSON and tab-deliminated ". Reply was better.
I found the Lex/Sam interview insightful on this question (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Guz73e6fw)
After using chatgpt plus for 3 weeks, I can already can see any professional engaging with a small to medium size business will now, need to be on their game with a portfolio of evidence. No longer will this group be uninformed and at the mercy of programmers. Proprietary apps will hopefully disappear.
NB: Thanks for idea, it made me realise I can ask chatgpt plus the tech stacks of apps and website that really work for SMEs. That is super helpful.