Tool Chasing

Living in a world of constant updates

I like shiny new objects. The latest tool to get the job done. The gadget that is going to transform my everyday carry bag. The newest piece of luggage (I have a strange affinity for new pieces of travel gear). I am always on the hunt for new software that will make my life easier. AI platforms are a new challenge for me. Each day, one platform releases a product that is better than another’s. I have to check it out. I am jumping from tool to tool. I realize that I am wasting time looking for the newest, best, and most productive tool. This is a problem which I have given a name to. I call it “tool chasing.” I am certainly guilty of being a tool chaser.

What I’ve come to realize lately is that it’s a two-way street. The tools are chasing me.

Some years ago, Kevin Kelly wrote a book called “The Inevitable.” One chapter in particular left its mark on my brain. He describes that in a future world, all the tools and products that we use every day will be constantly upgraded. The book is titled “Inevitable” because this is coming whether you want it to come or not. It would seem to me that this day has arrived.

I wake up in the morning, and my phone says that it wants to run an update. “Would you like to do it now or wait until later?” Later, I respond, and schedule it for tonight at 2 am. At least it asked. In the meantime, I head to my computer and push the mouse, and the screen lights up. None of the apps I left open yesterday are now open. Instead, I’m looking at the standard login screen. Sometime, while I was sleeping, my computer, which did not ask, updated. It just did it. I shake my head in frustration when my phone chirps. I pick it up to see a notification. It’s the Tesla app. Elon Musk would like to provide me with an update to my car. Start Now? Sure, I reply, and log in to my computer. I fire up Claude and… it wants to update the app. I open up Zoom for my first meeting. It pauses and lets me know that before I can start the meeting, it needs to apply an update.

You get the picture. You have probably lived it, too. Every one of these happened in the sequence I am describing. It felt a bit like I was getting pushed in a direction I did not want to go.

I remind you: I am a tool chaser. I like being on the latest version. Imagine my 85-year-old mother, who is having updates foisted upon her on a daily basis. Older users like to look at the phone and know that the icons are going to be in the exact same place they were in yesterday. They don’t know if they should update now or wait. They aren’t asking for new features. Updating is for the young.

Each day we are all updating our tools, whether we want to or not. It used to be that we would buy a “software package” and that was it. We installed it (I recall feeding stacks of floppy disks into computers) and just used it. Then we moved into the software as a service (SaaS) world. Subscriptions have proven to be far more profitable for software developers, particularly because of the ongoing need for constant updating. Because of the inherent need to communicate across different platforms, updating needs cascade across systems.

The AI experts tell us that the SaaS world is struggling. I do not really see that happening in core products yet, but perhaps it is coming. Now, when I want an app, I speak it into existence using Claude Code or a similar tool. Instead of taking the generic tool that SaaS developed for millions of users, I can make my own, custom-coded app. I have done this, and it is great. But it brings its own updating challenges.

Already, one such app we have created in-house needed an update due to a change in an upstream app. AI-developed tools will not be immune from the world of updates. If anything, those who venture into custom code via AI will be taking on the responsibility of building the updates to keep the app alive. We need to be very careful about building too much. We are not a software foundry.

Kevin Kelly was right. We now live in a world of constant updates.

I used to chase tools. Now, the tools are chasing me.