Over the last 25 years, the global software industry underwent a profound shift. It was the move from per-seat licensed, locally installed software to the software as a service (SaaS) model. It was a change that altered everything about the software market. For one thing, it gave even small businesses access to both industry-standard and cutting-edge software tools. For another, it eliminated burdensome hardware replacement cycles by moving the bulk of business computing to the cloud.
However, here in 2024, it's becoming quite clear that the SaaS market itself is losing momentum. Starting in 2022, investment activity in new SaaS startups plummeted. Since then, the valuations of public SaaS companies have, too. For the average developer, this is a worrisome trend. After all, SaaS has been a massive job creator for programmers. And if it's on its way out, what are all of the displaced developers to do?