The Great SaaS Stagnation

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Culture Slant is a weekly column that explores broader cultural trends across marketing, media, commerce, technology, and more.

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Instagram’s latest update, Instagram Maps, joins the long list of app updates that have users going “WTF?!”

Over the last few months, Instagram has rolled out rather pointless updates to users: Reposting. Grid rearranging. Not to mention, they’ve changed their fonts more times than one can count (seriously, I couldn’t even tell you what the current lineup is anymore). 

These features would have been great additions in social media’s heyday (2016ish), but now they feel 15 years too late and lag behind other platforms (reposting specifically, since every platform has had that since their inception). 

It’s no secret that, as particular social platforms have risen to power, there’s been a feature arms race to outperform the competition by adding the same features in the hopes that they’ll come out on top. 

Yet, as we get closer to the collapse of social media as we know it, no feature is big enough to act as a life raft to save the platform. 

Over time, social platforms have become known for certain features and use cases. 

Instead of all these platforms trying to be carbon copies of one another, they are better off staying in their own lanes and doubling down on the features that set their platform apart. 

No, Instagram doesn’t need to be TikTok. Facebook doesn’t need Stories. And LinkedIn sure as hell doesn’t need a video feed. 

But we can’t do that because we’re always in a race to be better, not different. 

The homogenization of social apps highlights a bigger issue: the lack of software innovation. 

We’re in the middle of a SaaS bubble right now, where emerging software either isn’t differentiated enough from its competition (“We’re like X but for Y”), is bloated with too many features, or doesn’t have the right ones to address their customers’ true pain points. 

As both a consumer and a marketer, I wonder if the product teams at these companies are listening to their customers to see what they want and use it to inform the product roadmap.

I’m inclined to think not. 

And Big Tech is the biggest culprit.

Companies like Meta are big and so far removed from their customers. They rely on third parties to tell them what their customers want rather than asking them directly. There are no boots on the ground or social listening (even though their own apps are a goldmine for it). 

It’s tone deaf not to give customers the features they want. Granted, there is more to consider when building a product, but it’s frustrating when customers have frustrations that companies refuse to address, while instead pushing their own agenda. 

When consumers aren’t being listened to and made a part of the decision, it makes them feel that all they’re good for is as a daily active user and for our data that is sold to the highest bidder, not an actual human. 

That said, Big Tech has lost the plot when it comes to innovation. 

Apple’s arguably died with Steve Jobs.

Microsoft’s left after Windows 10 (mayyyybe 17). 

Google’s with the introduction of Google Workspace. 

Big Tech was once innovative and truly disruptive (1,000 songs in your pocket! A word processor! Collaborative docs!). Now? It’s just bloated, clunky, and fails to provide users with what they want. It’s just a big cash and data grab. 

We haven’t seen true innovation from industry giants like Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft in over a decade. Each year, we get menial feature updates (this year, it’s the integration of AI). The UI/UX remains clunky and unchanged, and yet their products are still the industry standard. 

Big Tech companies assume that because everyone uses them, consumers will keep paying for them, despite the number of price increases. But that’s the beauty of a free-market system: there is always an alternative, and Big Tech is driving consumers to them in waves. 

Big Tech is being outpaced by newer SaaS tools that are beautifully designed, easy to use, and offer features valuable to customers. Emerging SaaS tools like Canva, Figma, Notion, and more are disrupting the industries these giants pioneered. 

Why? Because they’re listening to customers and giving them the features that they want, filling gaps left behind by the tech giants. 

But as they say, adapt or die. 

We saw it with Skype and Zoom. Skype had the first-mover advantage for video conferencing, but it couldn’t innovate to keep pace with Zoom. Now, the company shut down while Zoom became the industry standard for video conferencing. 

Innovation powers the tech industry. Without it, there is no industry. 

Somewhere along the way, these companies lost sight of what true innovation is. And it’s truly disappointing to watch these companies, which once disrupted the industry, now become dinosaurs, rendering themselves obsolete.

The death of Big Tech (if there will ever be such a thing) will be self-inflicted, an act of their own doing. The very thing that gave them power will be the thing that will take it away—their users. 

As we continue to navigate this era of late-stage capitalism, if Big Tech can’t keep up with the needs of its consumers, someone else will, and it might be enough to start a changing of the guard.

Alexa Phillips is a writer, brand & content strategist, and multi-passionate creative. She is the founder of Bright Eyes Creative, a Seattle-based brand consultancy and media company that helps founder-led brands and creatives design content-driven brand experiences and media.