Computer software is fairly easy when you are creating a simple example. But when you try to scale things up, everything changes.
The sad truth is that software simply does not scale up easily. Something that is very easy to demonstrate may be fiendishly difficult to execute at scale.
This translates into the cost of human effort in interesting ways. For example, I can create a compelling demo of a principle in a single day.
But if somebody were to see that idea and say “let’s make a commercial product to be used by millions of people”, the effort might take a team of five people a year or two. Depending on the product, it might even take a team of twenty people working for three to five years.
Fortunately for me, my job is mainly to make those compelling first demos. Bullet dodged. 🙂