this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
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Stop calling them tech companies: GenAI and SaaS — are they really tech? It’s time to call a spade a spade. (sifted.eu)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by Tea@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
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When I started angel investing in the late 1990s, a tech investment included a significant technology risk, with the potential upside being groundbreaking innovation. Being an investor at this time meant taking a considerable technology risk and betting on actual tech, such as nanotech, semiconductors or biotech.

E-commerce, albeit hyped and interesting, was not considered tech. It was “Business 2.0”, plain and straightforward, hype included.

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[–] andallthat@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You make a great point. But just to stay on the example of cars: besides the innovation on EVs, there's this horrible tendency to consider cars as tablets on wheels, both in the sense that you can forget about repairing them by yourself and in the sense that they are now increasingly becoming low-margin hardware to run higher margin subscription services. If anything warrants high valuation for a car company it would arguably be the innovation on EVs, rather than the SaaS model.

I hope the idea of Car Software As a Service dies before becoming too widespread. But if it doesn't, maybe car companies wouldn't become "Tech" companies, just more shitty subscription vendors. And their stock should be valued as such, not for the largely unwanted "Tech innovation".

[–] OpenPassageways@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago

I agree. I'd like to see some separation between the car manufacturer and the software. Any computers in the car should support whatever operating system you want to put on it. Things like controlling the car's functions would just be device drivers. If the car company also wants to get into the SaaS business, fine, but you shouldn't be required to pay for that software to operate the vehicle.