Luxury Software
On prosumers, identity, and the only thing left to sell
A continuation of Luxury Media (2023).
In 2023, I argued that in a world of infinite content, articulating worldview is your most valuable asset. People pay to support a point of view, to signal taste, to participate in something they believe in. I called this “luxury media.”
That argument has only become more clear. AI has collapsed the cost of production further. Anyone can ship software in an afternoon. The only question now is whether anyone cares.
This essay is about what luxury media means for startups and the way we do business. If you’re building technology for the people now flooding into entrepreneurship, you’re selling to a market where capability is abundant and meaning is scarce.
How does that change your approach?
The Prosumer
The barrier between producer and consumer has collapsed. People have been talking about the “prosumer” for decades, but I want to offer a more specific definition for this moment:
A prosumer is someone with infinite capability to build and total optionality about what to build.
Once you’ve created a company, hired a team, and built a brand, your direction inevitably becomes more clear. The constraints of commitment create that clarity, and create a gravitational pull for talent, capital, and customers who align with your vision.
Prosumers haven’t made those commitments yet. They exist in a state of maximum capability and maximum optionality, which means they have no forcing function for direction. They can do anything, but they are looking for somewhere to direct their energy. They are agents looking for something to believe in.
Prosumers are the fastest-growing customer segment in technology. Prosumers are founders, builders, creators, freelancers, indie hackers, solopreneurs, etc. They are acting freely, often within networks rather than traditional organizations. The explosion of AI tools has only accelerated this.
“Technical” and “non-technical,” “B2B” vs. “B2C”... these are largely meaningless ideas in the Age of Agency.
And here’s what that means for business: you cannot compete on capabilities alone.
Your customers can quickly become your competitors. They will soon have personal agents that can solve their problems autonomously. Your product isn’t the moat. When everyone can build, no one pays for product. They pay for something else.
Why Luxury
What do people pay for when capability is free?
They pay for a direction. People will pay for the signal that choosing this product sends about who they are.
This is what luxury has always been. When we buy luxury, we are buying the story more than the utility. From the Acquired podcast:
What makes a luxury brand different from premium is the fact that it is more desirable than its function alone, and that people believe that desirability is durable. If you own the place and you own the story, you own the reason why someone would believe in the longevity of that brand.
Look at the purchasing behavior of prosumers today. Why are knowledge workers paying $200/month for Claude when capable alternatives exist? Who is buying all these Substacks? Why did thousands of people spend $500 on Mac Minis to run cloud models and an open source agent?
These are luxury purchases. People are voting with their wallets for a worldview they want to support and be associated with.
When your customer can build anything, the only thing worth selling is what to believe. This is the business of luxury, and it’s the only business left in software.
What This Means
If you’re selling to prosumers, which more startups are than they realize, your worldview is your product. Everything else follows from that.
Articulation comes first. Before you build features, you need a point of view sharp enough that makes it clear what people are buying into. Claude isn’t dramatically better than the alternatives, but using it says something about your philosophy. It’s “the thinking man’s AI.”
Opinion is a feature. Consistently offer a point of view. In many ways, people are looking for someone to tell them what to do. The most beloved products encode philosophy in their defaults: The Linear Method, for example. Or Obsidian’s “file over app.”
Design for identity. Every product decision either reinforces or dilutes the identity your users are trying to construct. Marc and Los at Danger Testing understand this—they drop apps like musicians drop singles, small expressive software that exists to say something. You don’t use their apps every day, but you share them because they signal your taste.
Open Product Hunt on any given day and you’ll see dozens of “AI-powered” tools that do the same thing, with the same landing page template, the same value props, and the same empty Discord server. This is startup slop: building without taste, craft, or intention.
The alternative is luxury. Give people something to believe in. Make sure your work and your words are aligned. Build a world worth inhabiting. The nature of the business of technology is changing, but the opportunity has never been greater.
In software, everything else is dead on arrival.
great essay thank you