More software should die young
Because disposable isn't just camera-speak anymore
🔌 Interested in AI Editor Sentiment? It’s live here from My September Moment.
When I hear “disposable” followed by “product,” I instantly think “camera.”
Remember those? They were awesome.
Inexpensive, dead simple, and their constraints (27 shots, a crummy lens, built-in flash) were freeing.
Passing them around at parties or on trips, then holding your breath while the film developed—that was half the fun.
Smartphones killed them off but nostalgia’s a hell of a drug.
Things are wrapped in such a veil of mystery that many good philosophers have found it impossible to make sense of them. Even the Stoics have trouble. Any assessment we make is subject to alteration—just as we are ourselves. Look closely at them—how impermanent they are, how meaningless. — V. 10
Now, when you and I think about software, “disposable” practically never shows up.
Sure it’s been written about before12 but since the dawn of SaaS its mostly been about perpetual updates, infinite storage, and never-ending features.
Building Software has always been a Big Deal. Developer Tradecraft? Expensive—and enough to make anyone pause.
As AI reduces cycle times, it's now cheaper and easier to deploy from intent.
Old philosophies need a refresh.
For me, disposable software means three things: building with a limited lifespan from the start, accepting replacement as the antidote to indefinite maintainability and keeping it dead fit for purpose.
Demo, not memo
On Monday I interrupted myself as I was writing the plan to help our team build atomic habits to engage consistently on social.
I knew the most perfect plan in the world would be vanquished if it wasn’t simple and fun to track and talk about our activity.
My muscle memory opened up a Google Sheet.
Its blank gridlines stared back at me.
“No one will use this thing” it menaced. “If you build it, they won’t come”.
Schizophrenia aside, that sheet had a point.
If we’re out scouring Reddit, watching YouTube videos and posting on Twitter, no-one wants or will remember to log it in a spreadsheet. Its outside the flow of work (aka Slack) and just anti-social by nature.
But what if we could just @ mention a bot alongside the link in Slack to save it? We already do that with each other!
So began my very short quest to build a piece of disposable software: “social save”.
My charge: think of disposable software like those one-time use cameras — perfect for capturing the moment.
My little Slack bot has no delusions of being the next Hootsuite. It’s just a simple tool that does one job well: making it dead easy to track and share social content right where we already work.
And when it breaks? Or when our needs evolve? We can toss it out and build something new — freedom!
My view on disposable software is that its beauty is in its willingness to be temporary. Forgetting about tomorrow’s “what-ifs”.
The tools are here. The costs are low. The only thing left to change is how we think about building software.
Build small. Build specific. And remember: more software should die young.
https://edwardbenson.com/2016/04/on-disposable-software
https://sax1johno.medium.com/scalable-prototypes-and-disposable-software-9a8cdc0e35cd