Citrini Research published a fictional “macro memo from 2028” and it’s the most unsettling thing I’ve read this year. Not because it’s doomer fiction, but because every step in the chain is individually rational. The scenario: agentic coding tools hit a step function in late 2025. A competent dev can now replicate mid-market SaaS in weeks. CIOs start asking “why are we paying $500k/year for this?” Enterprise renewals get renegotiated at 30% discounts. Long-tail SaaS gets hit harder. But here’s where it gets dark. ServiceNow sells seats. When their Fortune 500 clients cut 15% of headcount, they cancel 15% of licenses. The AI-driven cuts that boost client margins mechanically destroy ServiceNow’s revenue. The company most threatened by AI becomes AI’s most aggressive adopter. Each company’s response is rational. The collective result is catastrophic. The paper traces this through intermediation collapse (agents don’t have brand loyalty or app fatigue), consumer spending decline (top 20% earners drive 65% of discretionary spending), and eventually into private credit defaults on PE-backed software deals underwritten on “recurring” revenue that stopped recurring. The DoorDash example is brutal. Their moat was “you’re hungry, you’re lazy, this is the app on your home screen.” An agent doesn’t have a home screen. It checks 20 alternatives and picks the cheapest. What makes this different from typical doom pieces is the financial mechanics. AI improves -> companies cut costs -> savings go to more AI -> more cuts -> displaced workers spend less -> companies that sell to consumers weaken -> loop accelerates. No natural brake. Hard not to connect this to my own experience using coding agents daily. Tools like Verdent and Codex genuinely make me 2-3x faster. The productivity gains are real. But who captures the value? Right now my employer does, by needing fewer of me. Not a prediction. But a scenario worth stress-testing your assumptions against. submitted by /u/No-Fact-8828
Originally posted by u/No-Fact-8828 on r/ArtificialInteligence