The Story They Tell You

In 2003, Steve Jobs advised Marc Benioff at Salesforce to build an "application ecosystem." Benioff took that advice and launched AppExchange, billing it as the "world's leading enterprise cloud marketplace."

The tech industry loved it. Every SaaS company followed suit:

• Shopify launched their App Store
• Monday.com built their marketplace
• WordPress created their plugin ecosystem
• HubSpot, Atlassian, Zendesk - everyone built a marketplace

They call it "innovation." They call it "extensibility." They call it "ecosystem."

I see it differently.

The Story They Don't Tell You

What the marketplace narrative misses is what Steve Jobs actually wanted.

Jobs didn't want an App Store initially. He wanted complete web apps running on Safari. He envisioned tight control, quality standards, and software that just worked. The iPhone SDK and App Store were compromises - forced by developer demand and market pressure.

And even then, what did the App Store become? A rent-seeking machine taking 30% of creators' profits by controlling in-app purchases. It took the Epic Games lawsuit to even allow purchases outside the App Store.

But here's the critical part everyone misses:

Steve Jobs wanted complete software. Marc Benioff saw a way to monetize incomplete software.

Those are not the same thing.

Why Marketplaces Exist

Here's what I've observed: Marketplaces exist because the core product leaves gaps.

When Salesforce highlights "10,000+ apps on AppExchange," it reveals that their base product requires additional components to meet most business needs.

When Shopify advertises "8,000+ apps in our App Store," it shows that core eCommerce functionality is just the starting point, with essential features available as paid add-ons.

When Monday.com showcases their marketplace and templates, users need to assemble their own solution from third-party components.

When WordPress boasts about 60,000 plugins, it means security, backups, SEO, and eCommerce all require separate installations.

The Business Model Reality

Here's how the model typically works:

Let me show you what this looks like in practice.

The Hidden Tax: What You Actually Pay

You sign up for a business platform. The base price seems reasonable.

But then you actually try to run a business:

Your "affordable" base subscription becomes a web of monthly charges across multiple vendors.

And that's BEFORE you factor in:

• Transaction fees
• Implementation costs
• Integration specialists
• Training time
• Ongoing maintenance

Beyond costs, there are operational challenges:

Every app is a potential security vulnerability. Every app can break when the platform updates their API. Every app conflicts with other apps. Every app has its own learning curve, its own support channel, its own subscription to manage.

You're not buying software. You're buying a part-time job managing software.

The AI Pricing Reality: Agentforce Analysis

Let's examine Salesforce's newest AI offering: Agentforce, and how its pricing compares to actual API costs.

Salesforce offers two pricing models for their AI agents:

Sounds innovative, right? AI agents for your business!

Let me show you the actual numbers.

Let's use GPT-5 Pro - OpenAI's flagship model for complex reasoning:

• Input: $15 per million tokens
• Output: $120 per million tokens

Salesforce charges you $2 regardless.

Let's look at a typical business support scenario - 10,000 conversations per month:

• 7,000 simple conversations (hours, status checks)
• 2,000 medium conversations (account questions)
• 1,000 complex conversations (technical support)

And that "Standard Success Plan" they include? "Access to Knowledge Articles, documentation, and Trailhead" - you mean the documentation that should come with the product? The community forums where customers help each other for free? That's not a success plan. That's the bare minimum.

Transparent pricing. Cost-based billing. Fair markup for infrastructure and support.

AI should automate your business operations, not inflate your software budget disproportionately.

The Integration Challenge

Beyond cost, there's a deeper challenge with the marketplace model: fragmentation.

What We Built Instead

ThothOS doesn't have a marketplace.

Not because we're against commerce. Not because we hate developers. Not because we think we know everything.

We don't have a marketplace because we're not selling you an incomplete product.

When we looked at what businesses actually need to operate, we found 17 core workspaces:

Everything talks to each other because it's one system:

• Add a customer in CRM → automatically flows to billing, contracts, email campaigns, support portal
• Process payroll → automatically updates accounting, employee portal, tax filing
• Sell a product in POS → inventory updates, accounting records it, analytics tracks it
• Sign a contract → document library gets it, CRM notes it, renewals track it

One entry. Everywhere it needs to be.

But What About Phase II and III?

And then - only then - will we launch a marketplace.

But it won't be a marketplace for ransomed features. It will be a true commerce platform connecting:

• Venues with performers
• Companies with vendors
• Businesses with customers
• Services with clients

Actual commerce. Not feature ransoming.

And we won't tariff users 30% to participate. We'll give businesses three ways to interact: an AI assistant that can manage it all, a full API for programmatic access, and a professional UI - no compromises. One upfront price, and let businesses transact.

The Real Innovation

The SaaS industry convinced you that "customization through apps" is innovation.

It's not.

Real innovation is building complete software that solves real problems without requiring an ecosystem of paid plugins to function.

Steve Jobs understood this. He wanted software that just works.

Marc Benioff saw a way to monetize incompleteness.

ThothOS is what happens when you choose Jobs' vision over Benioff's business model.

Who This Is For

ThothOS is for businesses tired of:

• Software that doesn't work without apps
• Managing 15 different subscriptions
• Plugin conflicts and security vulnerabilities
• "Talk to sales for pricing"
• Implementation consultants
• Per-user, per-feature pricing games
• Vendor lock-in
• Data scattered across incompatible systems
• Support nightmares from fragmented software
• The part-time job of managing your business software
• Getting charged $2 for AI conversations that cost pennies

If you're piecing together multiple tools and manually entering data between systems, ThothOS is for you.

If you're launching a business and don't want software chaos, ThothOS is for you.

If you believe software should solve problems instead of creating subscription revenue streams, ThothOS is for you.

What to Do Next

The Bottom Line