SaaS Is Dead. Long Live SaaS.

"SaaS is dead."

I hear this everywhere right now. From VCs, from tech analysts, from LinkedIn gurus.

And you know what? They're right.

The old SaaS is dead. And I say: Good riddance.

What is "old SaaS"?

You all know it:

The feature monster. Software that boasts 47 menu items because some PM decided five years ago that feature count = value. You want to write a letter, but first you have to navigate through three submenus, select the right format, find a template — and then you discover the template is from 2019 and doesn't work anymore.

The tutorial graveyard. Before you can use the software, you have to watch three YouTube videos, click through an onboarding wizard, and ideally buy a course. They call it "powerful." I call it: poorly designed.

The data vacuum. Your data sits on US servers. "But the server is in Frankfurt!" — Yes, but the provider is based in the US. US Cloud Act. Google it. (Or better: DuckDuckGo it.)

The pricing maze. Free Tier, Starter, Pro, Business, Enterprise, "Contact Sales". And the one feature you need is of course in the most expensive tier.

This is the SaaS that's dying. And it deserves it.

What comes instead?

I see two fundamental shifts:

Shift 1: Solution-First instead of Feature-First

Years ago, I heard about the concept of the "women's PC."

The thesis was simple: Women don't want features. Women want solutions.

Before anyone gets upset: This was marketing speak back then, and yes, the framing is problematic. But the core idea is brilliant — and it applies to all people, not just one gender.

Why do I have to:

• Open menu
• Click "New"
• Select format
• Find template
• Fill in fields
• Adjust formatting
• ...

When I could simply say:

• "I want to write a letter to my bank."

20 years ago, this was a vision. Science fiction. Star Trek computer.

In 2026, it's technically possible. The technology exists. We call it LLMs, AI Agents, Natural Language Interfaces.

The question is no longer "if," but "who builds it right."

Solution-First means:

• The user says what they want to achieve
• The software finds the way
• Features are means to an end, not an end in themselves

Shift 2: EU-First instead of US-Default

The second shift is more political, but equally important: Digital sovereignty.

I'm currently building my first own SaaS product. And I've set myself a rule:

🇪🇺 Everything must be EU-based or EU-owned.

Why?

Because the US Cloud Act means that US authorities can access data — regardless of where the server is physically located.

• AWS Frankfurt? US jurisdiction.
• Google Cloud Belgium? US jurisdiction.
• Azure Netherlands? US jurisdiction.

This isn't conspiracy talk. This is current law. And for European companies working with sensitive data, it's a real problem.

The EU-First Alternative

The good news: There are now EU-based alternatives for almost everything. You just need to know where to look.

Cloud Hosting

Hetzner is my personal favorite. German company, data centers in Germany and Finland, excellent price-performance ratio.

Databases

PostgreSQL is open source, battle-tested, and you can host it anywhere. No vendor lock-in trap like AWS Aurora or Google Cloud SQL.

Caching

Valkey is the community-driven fork of Redis after Redis Labs changed the license. Open source, no US company behind it.

AI / LLMs

Mistral from Paris now delivers models that compete with GPT-4. Aleph Alpha from Heidelberg focuses on the enterprise market with German data protection.

Payments

Stripe now has an EU entity, but for those who want to stay completely EU-native: Mollie from the Netherlands is a real alternative.

My Project

So what am I building?

A digital butler.

Not another tool with 200 features nobody uses.

But an agent that solves problems:

• "Write a reply to this email."
• "Remind me about the meeting tomorrow."
• "Summarize this PDF for me."

For freelancers, small businesses — but also for regular people who just want to spend less time fiddling with software.

The irony: This project actually started just for me. My own assistant. Then more and more questions came from my network:

"Can I have that too?"

And me: "Sure, you just need to follow these 123 steps..."

Silence. 😅

So now I'm building it so others can use it too. Without the 123 steps.

EU-hosted. GDPR by design. No data in US clouds.

The old SaaS is dead. The new SaaS speaks your language.

The next generation of software won't ask: "Which feature do you want to use?"

It will ask: "What do you want to achieve?"

And it will run on infrastructure that's not under US jurisdiction.

This isn't idealism. It's the logical consequence of:

• Better technology (LLMs, Agents)
• Political reality (Cloud Act, GDPR)
• User expectations (nobody wants complicated software)

The question isn't whether this future is coming.

The question is whether we help shape it from Europe — or whether we're just spectators again.

I've made my choice.

Resources

For those interested in EU-First tech:

• Incus — Container management, community-driven LXD fork
• Mistral AI — French AI company, strong open-source models
• Hetzner — German hosting, unbeatable price-performance
• Aleph Alpha — German AI, focused on enterprise and privacy
• Valkey — Redis fork, open source