The era of meta apps is here.
Adam Wathan@adamwathan
Feels like we're all just building "things for building other things" and not a lot of "things" anymore.
6:41 PM · Jun 16, 2026 · 4.4K Views
Adam Wathan argues that software engineering now prioritizes building tools to build software over finished end-user applications
DAIR.AI's Elvis Saravia calls the trend 'meta apps
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Sentiment
Positive users see the shift to meta-apps and dev tools as enabling needed agents and progress, while negative users criticize it as grifting for VCs instead of solving consumer problems.
Pos
71.4%
Neg
28.6%
9 comments with sentiment.
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Aardvark Erickson@AArdvarkErick
@adamwathan You mean like tailwind? 🤔
12hViews 3.6KLikes 11
BOOKMARKS7LIKES75RETWEETS3
Tyler Hillery@_TylerHillery
@adamwathan
11hViews 1.9KLikes 75Bookmarks 7
REPLIES2
Daniel Vassallo@dvassallo
@adamwathan @dragosilinca Almost everything in the economy is things for other things when you think about it.
11hViews 1.2KLikes 25
Adam Wathan@adamwathan
@AArdvarkErick I said “we” didn’t I? 🙃
12hViews 3.6KLikes 63
Joe Muller@BosonJoe
@adamwathan My wife asked me if I was building another tool last night and it made me reconsider my life choices
12hViews 920Likes 9
17 years of song a day@songadaymann
@adamwathan Building a thing
11hViews 446Likes 4Bookmarks 1
Derek Martin 🇨🇦@lo_fye
@adamwathan I worry that once LLMs are doing all the coding, nothing new and innovative will ever be developed again. Everything will only be a remix. Without humans that have both deep knowledge and insight, where will the future come from?
5hViews 259Likes 3Bookmarks 1
Nick Gimbal@nicgimbal
@adamwathan gotta make things for the people who have everything now
10hViews 1.5KLikes 3
Greg Navis@gregnavis
@adamwathan Some random thoughts:
1. It's easier than building "things". 2. When there's a gold rush around sell shovels.
11hViews 146Bookmarks 1
David Taylor@dajtxx
@adamwathan Model engineering is like that - some people just love building tools to build other tools. They end up with amazing workshops. I suspect we are not ending up with amazing software development environments.
5hViews 417Likes 2
IndieGamesCafe@IndieGamesCafe
@adamwathan Some of us builders are still here, even in a sea of web slop AI cringe. I'm building a forum platform.
12hViews 257Likes 6
Arjun@A4rjun
@adamwathan This makes me wonder what will happen to shovel makers when the gold rush is over
11hViews 501Likes 1
Lucca Huguet@luccahuguet
@adamwathan Sorry not sorry
At least i use my thing to build my thing
Which is fun
7hViews 164Likes 1
Ben Dickson@bendee983
@adamwathan And then consider the self-improving harness. It's the thing that builds the thing that builds the thing.
11hViews 116Likes 1
Ash@edweirdsnowman
@adamwathan Isn’t a thing to build other things a thing in itself?
3hViews 246
jacky@jjacky
@adamwathan @AtlantisPleb something something shovels in a gold rush
10hViews 217Likes 4
Cosmin Popovici@cossssmin
@adamwathan Now that I've rebuilt the thing that builds things I can't wait to use it to rebuild all of my things.
12hViews 198Likes 4
Luckey Faraday@luckeyfaraday
@adamwathan I built a thing for building other things
https://github.com/luckeyfaraday/Athena
10hViews 594Likes 3
Dima Belyaev@blvdmitry
@adamwathan Been my last 6 years since I started building a design system for my product and never wrote a single line of the product 😂 time to change that
12hViews 510Likes 3
Chase Giunta@ChaseGiunta
@adamwathan I've felt this way for years and it's been a mental block to actually being motivated.
I want to build things to solve consumer problems, not build things to help others build things.
Anyways, so I'm poor and I've accomplished nothing.
12hViews 282Likes 3
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