Enough Already: Stop Hyping REA (Reverse Engineer Anything)

REA (Reverse Engineer Anything) analyzes software through reverse engineering and uses AI coding to build similar software based on the extracted logic. Official demos included replicating the classic brick-breaker game DX-Ball and analyzing Notion's clipboard feature. REA gained 80,000 GitHub stars in its first three days, surpassing OpenClaw's 60,000 in the same period. However, REA can only analyze binaries installed locally or functions running in a local browser. For most SaaS products, core logic such as inventory checks, price calculation, and discount processing runs on cloud servers, which REA cannot reach. Developers can also raise reverse engineering costs with virtualization protection, obfuscation, and anti-debugging techniques. Most importantly, unauthorized commercial reverse engineering may be illegal. REA is therefore mainly useful for personal learning and research, with limited commercial adoption and minimal impact on the SaaS industry. Still, the barrier to building software directly with AI is falling, and SaaS aimed at small businesses may lose its reason to exist. SaaS companies should embed industry know-how into agent products to deliver outcomes rather than features, and build new competitiveness, such as Salesforce's proprietary CRM-focused large model. REA is less powerful than hyped, but the risk that AI disrupts SaaS remains.