Software is not the problem

As I write this on July 16th, 2026, Squarespace, the platform I’m publishing on, is getting hammered in the socials for raising their prices. And this year so far, software has been the scapegoat for every problem under the sun. But I don’t think it’s the problem.

Of course it’s annoying to have to pay more for systems your business runs on. It’s annoying to have to pay subscriptions at all. But if a difference of $10 a month is going to break your small business, or cause you to spend 8 hours trying to vibe-code something you’ll be committing to maintaining for the rest of your business life, something else is off.

And that something else is consumer sentiment, which currently sits at a reading of 44. Down 7 points from the previous all-time low of 51.7 in 1980 - a year when inflation peaked at 14.7%. Think about that, in a year when prices went up by 14.7% people felt better than they do now.

And software is a convenient scapegoat. Let’s all focus on these annoying recurring expenses right, it’s something easy to point to that is the culprit. But in reality, people just feel bad about the economy, and that is affecting everything, whether it’s your sales, or your willingness to invest in the future. We have reached a point in this moment where people think the sky is falling. And are acting out of that. It’s not the extra $10 a month some platform is charging you, that won’t fix the issue.