
Ask HN: Software is cheaper to build now - dvduval
With software, I have had this theory for a while that there is somewhat of a law where what was built one year ago or 10 years ago is always cheaper to build today. So this is what helps continue to drive innovation. Have there been any studies on the price of building software always getting cheaper?<p>I suppose a big exception to this rule would be when there are major players in a particular niche. For example, it would be more expensive to build a competitor to Google now than in 2000. But it still follows that the code it&#x27;s cheaper to write now because there are so many more tools available to the coder than before.
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AnimalMuppet
Writing it now in a high-level language is cheaper than writing it in
assembly, the way we would have 60 years ago. Languages keep getting better
(for the most part). If they don't, well, the old one didn't die; you can keep
using it.

Writing it now with today's libraries is cheaper than writing the same
functionality without the libraries, the way we would have had to do 20 years
ago. Libraries keep getting better (for the most part). If they don't, well,
you can use the old one or roll your own.

The result of those two paragraphs is that it's always less expensive to write
the exact same functionality as it was in the past, because the tools are
better. But the problem is that we don't want to write the exact same
functionality. We want to add this year's set of must-have features, so the
scope is bigger than it was last year...

