The Mega Drive feeling
A meme compares AI coding tools to the old Mega Drive: people rush home to build for the pleasure of it. The fun is real, but underneath it, how companies get software is shifting.
The TL;DR about marketplaces is that more free plugins are likely to emerge, be reused, and further developed. Which is again not great news for small, medium and niche SaaS.
There is a meme going around that compares AI coding tools to the old Sega Mega Drive. People now rush home from work to keep building, the way kids once rushed home to keep playing.
It captures something real. The tools have become fast and forgiving. An evening of work can produce something that actually runs, with real features, made by someone who could never get that far before.
The numbers back it up. By early 2026, Claude Code was the most-used AI coding tool in a survey of fifteen thousand developers. A growing share of all public code is now written with it.
And it is not only developers. At one large healthcare software company, more than half of the use came from non-developers: support staff and implementation teams, picking it up on their own.
No. Underneath the joy, how companies get their software is starting to change..
The TL;DR about marketplaces is that more free plugins are likely to emerge, be reused, and further developed. Which is again not great news for small, medium and niche SaaS.
The difference between a Mega Drive and enterprise software is that nobody's production database was at stake when you left Sonic paused overnight.
There is a meme going around that compares AI coding tools to the old Sega Mega Drive.
So the simple story is joy and access. More people can build, and they want to.
But underneath the fun, something bigger is shifting in how companies get their software. That shift is what this series is about.
The difference between a Mega Drive and enterprise software is that nobody's production database was at stake when you left Sonic paused overnight.
No. Underneath the joy, how companies get their software is starting to change.
A meme compares AI coding tools to the old Mega Drive: people rush home to build for the pleasure of it. The fun is real, but underneath it, how companies get software is shifting.
This is the short version. Read the full-length essay, “Enterprise assisted-coding is the new Mega Drive. How to survive the creative chaos?”.
This issue is part of Everybody's Smart, a newsletter on taste, judgment, AI, culture, cognition, and the future of professional work. New issues every 2 to 3 weeks, free on LinkedIn.
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