Software Is Entering Its IKEA Era

Every few days, someone confidently declares that AI is about to wipe out software engineering. I don't buy that. I think software is much closer to woodworking than people realize. Before industrialization, furniture was made by hand. If you wanted a table, a chair, a cabinet, or a bed frame, you needed a skilled craftsperson. The work took years of training. It was slow, specialized, and expensive. Good furniture was not broadly accessible because it could not be. Every piece required real human expertise, and that expertise did not scale cheaply. Then industrialization happened. The craft of making furniture did not disappear. It changed. Machines, standardization, and repeatable manufacturing processes made it possible to produce furniture at much larger scale and much lower cost. The average quality was often lower than what a master craftsperson could produce by hand, but that was only part of the story. The bigger change was that an entirely new market opened up. Furniture becam