Honestly it'd depend a ton of the particular industry/company/programmer. Some are definitely creating capital assets and should be amortized, others are "repairs and maintenance" which can be expenses. I'd probably defer to treating them as expenses, but allow for amortization if the company desires, and maybe have some audit possibility on that if it looks like the big players are gaming that somehow.

Part of the complication here is companies generally really like amortizing stuff. It lets you smooth your profit across years which is usually better both for tax purposes and for your financial reporting for the market. So this kind of change is fine or even good for a company like Google, but can really suck for a small bootstrapped SAAS. This is why I'd allow companies to pick, with some degree of latitude.