currently depends on having a working-age population that is large enough to support the non-working population

This is only a problem if production does not increase dramatically, as it has for the last century. The reason it feels like there are insufficient working people is because parasites siphon from the resource distribution between more and more productive workers and their non working counterparts

Confidence is indistinguishable from correctness if you lack competence and experience. Now in addition to the competent and experienced having to interpret the requirements and do the work, they must also sift through half baked AI solutions.

Id go so far as to say SaaS in general. Small startups are paying $5000/month to send emails and we’ve come to the point where inboxes are monopolized and if you don’t pay up to a cloud provider your emails end up in spam.

Take this and repeat for everything. Monopolize, ratchet up the costs, profit.