First: the audience is NOT software devs. Because as you've surely noticed if you are a software dev, you can do most of the things that OpenClaw can do; if it offers improvements, they seem very marginal. You know, "it makes web apps" I can do that; "it posts to Discord programmatically" I can code that; etc. Maybe an AI code buddy shaves a few minutes off but so what. It's hard to understand the hoopla if this is you.
However, if you're a small business owner of some kind, where "small business" is defined by headcount (not valuation - this can include VC's), it's been transformative.
For a person like that, adding a 10k/mo expense is a natural move. And, at that price point, an AI service for 2k/mo is more than competitive: it's a savings.
The other part is that I think a lot of people have gotten used to human-in-the-loop workflows, but there's a big step up if you can omit the person.
Combining this w/the observation above, there were a lot of small business owners who were probably stymied by this problem: they had a bunch of tasks across departments that were worth like $2k/mo to do but couldn't fill (not enough in salary, couldn't be local). AI fits naturally for that use case. For them, it's valuable.
I see your point but these business owners are going to wait until a big player offers this as an online service. As of now installing *Claw requires running scripts, mucking about with Docker etc, no business owner is going to do that unless software dev happens to be their hobby.
> Mine runs my auto parts company.. tracks 395K products on Amazon, manages 3 warehouses, scrapes competitor pricing, handles email, posts to social media
> Fortunately, I do. My OpenClaw agent keeps a personal friends CRM and reminds me to actively maintain my friendships using a weekly CRON, it event suggest what to write/plan/talk abou
I'm wondering the same thing. I keep seeing examples like "book your plane tickets" and "reschedule your meetings". I don't know who does these relatively high stakes things often enough to automate them.
I see the value for managing software projects, but the personal assistant stuff I don't get. Then again, I would never trust a model to send an email on my behalf, so I'm probably not the target audience.
