For decades, software users have been stuck with whatever developers decided to build. If you needed different features or a better design, your only option was to learn programming yourself.
That power imbalance is starting to shift. The people who actually use software, lawyers, doctors, teachers, small business owners, have rarely been the same people building it. Professional developers created tools for problems they didn't always understand firsthand.
AI coding assistants are changing this dynamic. Non-technical users can now describe what they need and get working software without writing code themselves. This matters because it means you're no longer limited by what existing apps offer or what you can convince a developer to build.
The implications go beyond convenience. When users can create their own tools, software starts fitting workflows instead of forcing workflows to fit software. That's a fundamental shift in who controls technology.
Developer tools have historically been the best-designed software because the people building them were also using them daily. Now that feedback loop can exist for every type of application.
