I work adjacent to this field, and I largely agree when it comes to the software side of things. With some notable exceptions, a lot of pure-play "quantum software" companies are premature optimizations to a field who's hardware can best be described as physics experiments with a Python API. Many of these places are pivoting to "AI" applications, which is simply them putting their mouths where the money is. If a "quantum winter" happens, many of these places will be the first to go.
I think this is partially a symptom of cargo culting the SV model, like you suggested, along with the much more fundamental reason that software has a very low barrier to entry. Hardware is hard, but it's really the most impactful investment to make in quantum tech at this early stage because of the spin-off applications in sensing, timing and networking.
I think this is partially a symptom of cargo culting the SV model, like you suggested, along with the much more fundamental reason that software has a very low barrier to entry. Hardware is hard, but it's really the most impactful investment to make in quantum tech at this early stage because of the spin-off applications in sensing, timing and networking.