There’s a well-known children’s story about a goose that laid golden eggs.

Once a day, the remarkable animal would lay a single golden egg, which the farmer could sell for a generous sum. One day, however, someone whispered to him, “You’re being foolish. All you have to do is cut the goose open—you’ll find all the golden eggs inside. You’ll become rich instantly instead of waiting.”

The impatient farmer went ahead with the idea and gathered everyone to witness it. He took a knife and, with a single cut, ended the goose’s life. He opened the animal—and to everyone’s surprise, there was nothing inside.

The most disappointed of all was the farmer himself, who muttered under his breath: “I’ve killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. How foolish I was.”

This plays along quite well with today’s software industry. Which is plagued by subscription models that offer the same solutions, repackaged again and again. 

When it’s not the same, the new selling point is that each update presents a renewed opportunity to “optimize” your workflow. In plain terms, that usually means someone is about to lose their job—and that we’re once again stripping value from the original proposition.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not against the software industry as a whole, nor do I think we should return to hand drawings or revert to outdated methods. But the question needs to be asked: 

If one person is now doing the work of three for roughly the same fee, doesn’t that mean the software providers just lost two customers? True, consolidation is beneficial, but in depressed markets, the model is bad news for both companies and their clients.

Additionally, this cat-and-mouse game is affecting us in at least 2 important ways:

1. The first issue is that automation has disrupted the traditional pathway to becoming a senior practitioner. Repetitive tasks were never just about “burdening” juniors—they existed to help build the experience necessary for higher-level competency, all while generating modest income for the firm.

The software industry’s favorite selling motto—“freeing up time for creative tasks”—is, at best, dismissive of the fact that most productive work is still relatively boring. Whether by cultural norms or client expectations, very few are truly interested in “paying for design.” Optimization has resulted only in marginal wages for contracts which are already difficult.

Does this mean we need a new model? Probably. However, for now, our increasingly competent software seems mostly used to eat into whatever profitability remains in a project.

2. The second issue is that when extreme commoditization drives the industry, there’s only so much we can shave off the top before fees become so low that making ends meet becomes impossible.

A few years ago, a book I read suggested that a healthy practice should aim for a margin of around 16%. That number cannot be improving—especially as operating costs continue to rise alongside ever-tightening regulations.

3. These two are compounding aggressively with what we have mentioned before and create a clear contrast with how we used to do our business in the past.

Back then, you could just buy a pencil—and it stayed yours. Aside from the occasional tax, the tools you needed to materialize your knowledge were a one-time investment. Today, architects are trapped in an endless loop of paying recurring fees—effectively taxed not just on their tools, but also on their production.

Stop one payment, and your whole production is locked behind a door to which you have no key. It’s part of the reasons why BIM adoption has not been as fast as expected. Consultancies are potentially at the mercy of the software provider, losing access to their most valuable assets: solutions and ideas developed for a project.

Of course, the software industry isn’t expected to become a charity. The problem is not theirs alone, and plenty of them genuinely care about their customers and even lend a hand in times of crisis. Pointing perhaps to a revaluation of the model.

For those who don’t think about this, however, it’s worth remembering that your clients are struggling too. Architects are the primary users of your drawing software. If we go away, the golden eggs go with us.

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