There used to be a fairly obvious relationship between the size of a product and the size of the team behind it.
Big software needed big teams.
Large audiences needed large operations.
A lot of that is still true.
But the relationship is loosening.
A single person with modern hosting, open-source software, automation and AI-assisted development can now build something that would have been surprisingly expensive a decade ago.
That changes the shape of the internet.
Small teams can move differently
A one-person product doesn't have to wait for a quarterly planning cycle.
There are fewer meetings.
Fewer dependencies.
Fewer layers between the person using the product and the person making it.
That doesn't automatically make small products better.
It does make experimentation cheaper.
Someone can build an idea, put it online and see what happens.
Software as a personal medium
We often talk about software as a business tool.
But software can also be a form of expression.
A person can encode an opinion into an interface.
They can build a tiny tool because they dislike the way another tool works.
They can create a strange archive because they have an unusual interest.
The cost of making these things keeps dropping.
That means more unusual ideas can survive.
AI as a force multiplier
AI is part of this story, but not the entire story.
Cloud infrastructure, open-source libraries, better browsers, payment systems and global distribution already made independent software much easier to create.
AI adds another layer.
It can help with boilerplate, debugging, research, writing and repetitive development work.
The result is not that everyone suddenly becomes a software company.
It's that the distance between “I have an idea” and “I have something people can try” can become much shorter.
The trade-off
There is a catch.
Building is easier.
Getting noticed is not.
The internet can now produce enormous amounts of software very quickly. Discovery becomes the scarce resource.
That's another reason curation matters.
The future may contain more small products than ever.
Finding the good ones will be the interesting part.
One person is enough
Maybe that's the most useful thing to remember.
You don't always need a huge team to make something worth visiting.
Sometimes you need an idea, enough patience to build it, and the courage to put the little thing online.
The internet has room for that.
It always has.