I think there are two conflating ideas here, commoditization and uniqueness. Commoditization will happen over time, especially with open source becoming a bigger part of more industries, but that doesn't mean you need to rush to become a commodity.
You should start with something unique and keep making unique things that delight the people who are willing to pay for those things.
It's not a complicated idea, but it takes focus and time to really get to know your customers and their needs.
I mentioned the uniqueness elements to highlight areas where SaaS services can evolve into from their "solution" service to a "problem" service.
I do however agree with you that, you should always try to offer something unique (as this is the USP and where you can make higher profit margins) and that it can sometimes take time to achieve this. However, SaaS is not revolutionary and it can be copied by anyone and some of them may have a nice user interface and/or great product functionality but it is not revolutionary aka a commodity - which as I mentioned in the post is a death spiral as it focuses on competing on price.
Comments
I think there are two conflating ideas here, commoditization and uniqueness. Commoditization will happen over time, especially with open source becoming a bigger part of more industries, but that doesn't mean you need to rush to become a commodity.
You should start with something unique and keep making unique things that delight the people who are willing to pay for those things.
It's not a complicated idea, but it takes focus and time to really get to know your customers and their needs.
I mentioned the uniqueness elements to highlight areas where SaaS services can evolve into from their "solution" service to a "problem" service.
I do however agree with you that, you should always try to offer something unique (as this is the USP and where you can make higher profit margins) and that it can sometimes take time to achieve this. However, SaaS is not revolutionary and it can be copied by anyone and some of them may have a nice user interface and/or great product functionality but it is not revolutionary aka a commodity - which as I mentioned in the post is a death spiral as it focuses on competing on price.