GoKawiilMost of the web software we interact with today is static. The developers have a limited amount of time and attention, and focus on building the features that serve the largest group of users. The top of the demand curve is well-served by existing software, but there is a long-tail of unmet needs that’s different for every user.
User needs in mapping software
Even if the developers were incredibly motivated to shove in every feature, user interfaces can only become so complex before they become unusable. Every additional feature added complicates the product for every other user. If the market for that feature is small, it can actively make the product worse for every user who doesn’t need it.
With this context the rise of LLM-assisted coding has been genuinely empowering for anyone who needed something that fell into this long tail.
Software has gotten all… squishy#
It’s become readily apparent that LLMs are really quite excellent at building Software for One. Personal apps that side-step all of the complexity and accountability of enterprise software and are custom fit for a single person’s workflow.
Pete Koomen at Y Combinator thinks there is an opportunity for what they are calling Small Software. I think they are onto something.
Y Combinator@ycombinator Agents make it easy to build personal tools for yourself or your team. But deploying, securing, and sharing that software is still far more complicated than creating it. A cloud built for small software could remove that complexity and make bespoke tools as easy to share with a colleague as a Google Doc. July 22, 2026
Pi is a good example of what I’m starting to think of as LLM-native software: a battle-tested core, but almost endlessly extensible just by asking, where users are able to share their customizations with others. In the past year your users have suddenly acquired the ability to speak code into existence. Most existing software can’t leverage this. Pi leans into it.
I suspect we’re going to start seeing more software following this self-extension pattern. However most of our existing examples of pluggable software are local software: AI agents, developer IDEs, mods for video games, Blender add-ons, CAD extensions. These tend to be professional tools with a high barrier to entry.
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