Prediction◆Article
Within three years, 30 to 50 percent of the software on your Mac could be software you made yourself.
Thomas Paul Mann predicts that within three years, roughly half the software on a typical Mac will be user-built rather than purchased from companies. ✦ AI generated
Thomas Paul Mann · Platformer · 2026-07-22 · original ↗
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“If you had to make a guess: in, let's say, three years, what do you think is the mix on my Mac between software I made, software my friends made, and software a company made?”
I think software that a company made is the lowest. Software that you made is maybe 30 to 50 percent — the stuff that you made to use every day. And then the rest comes from your internal tooling, from your friends, from something you found from somebody else and potentially adjusted to work like you want.
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- ·Thomas Paul Mann predicts 30–50% of Mac software will be user-built within 3 years.
- ·Company-made software will be the smallest category on a typical Mac.
- ·The rest comes from internal tooling, friends, and modified third-party code.
- ·Users build their own daily-use software instead of buying it.
- ·Software is discovered socially or internally, not through traditional stores.
- ·Existing code is modified to fit personal workflows.
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extends → Giving people tools to create their own tools fundamentally changes the equation of what software can be.Thomas Paul Mann · Platformerexplains mechanism → The most junior and the most senior engineers benefit most from AI, while mid-level engineers are in a dangerous spot.Thomas Paul Mann · Platformerprovides context → Most commercial software is a compromise: companies add features to chase growth, bloating apps until they hurt more than they help.Thomas Paul Mann · Platformer