Interfaces commiditize everything
A dumb phrase has become popular in the indie hacker scene over the last year: “It’s just a ‘wrapper’”
It refers to apps that “just” wrap ChatGPT in a specialied UI. The argument is true ofc, but what irks me is that some people seem to think that matters. It doesn’t.
Interfaces ultimately commoditize everything underneath.
Your tech stack, code quality and organsiational mission statement simply doesn’t show up for the end user.
The user doesn’t care if your app is built in Go, C#, Cobol or JS. The user doesn’t care if you use NVIDIA or AMD chips. The user doesn’t care if its powered by OpenAI or a proprietary model.
The user cares about:
- Does it solve a problem.
- Can they use it.
Interfaces commoditize everything underneath.
This gives me the chance to reshare Michael Wolfe’s now legendary answer about why DropBox was a success.