However else you feel, AI is a force multiplier, and that can also REALLY benefit "Artisanal work + Small Business"
I feel like the "one person app creator" business is so much more viable than it has been since Web 1.0
Five years ago, to run your own solo business in this space, you had to know most of the following: taxes, legal, backend, frontend, devops, iOS dev, Android dev, and marketing and then pay through the nose for most of the ones you didn't. AI helps to paper over a LOT of those gaps... and you can spend more time doing the shit that matters to your business.
You also needed time and lots of it, which is perhaps easy to come by if you're a trust fund baby or independently wealthy and don't have to work for a living but if you have a job and/or family is in extremely short supply
I used to run an online community on the side and I spent SO MUCH TIME doing IT/legal/finance drudgework that could have been spent, you know, engaging with the community and actually improving the product... that "artisinal work" for a "small business" you think you love.
There are of course major major problems with AI, like environmental concerns and others, but dichotomies like yours are not the way forward. At least not a good way forward.
> However else you feel, AI is a force multiplier, and that can also REALLY benefit "Artisanal work + Small Business"
> Five years ago, to run your own solo business in this space, you had to know most of the following: taxes, legal, backend, frontend, devops, iOS dev, Android dev, and marketing and then pay through the nose for most of the ones you didn't. AI helps to paper over a LOT of those gaps... and you can spend more time doing the shit that matters to your business.
How is running a business in the way you've just described artisanal? You're basically saying we should be outsourcing all of these things to AIs, which is simply not artisanal.
You'll surely understand if you ever take the plunge and run your own business.
You're going to have to spend quite a bit of time and/or money doing things unrelated to the actual product and CX.
Taxes, marketing, etc. The more you can streamline those other bits, the more time and energy you can spend actually improving the thing you are offering.
Again, maybe it's the kind of thing where you need to run a business, or at least talk to a business owner to understand.
As I understand it, we used to have the concept of "hiring workers" or "contracting for services".
The benefit of this was that when Internal Revenue called and said in lieu of a tax return, you sent a takeaway menu covered in pornographic drawings, you could reach out to the person you paid and expect them to take accountability.
Instead, we're getting :sparkles: You're absolutely right! I shouldn't have sent the taxman the Goatse picture, would you like me to try something else? :sparkles:
I miss when I would receive and email or something that I can easily tell that whomever wrote it is a clueless idiot. Now I have to filter the prose before reaching the same conclusion.
Those concepts still exist and I'd highly recommend them when possible.
We also had, and still have, concepts called "time" and "money" and perhaps you've heard that they're finite and often in short supply.
Particularly when "bootstrapping," another concept you can consider. This is when you start small and self-fund your own business. Seems pretty relevant because we're talking about small and artisanal businesses.
...
...wait, I get it. This is HN. All you people understand is venture capital funded shit. In that case, yeah. Build your prototype, do whatever you have to do to get $100M funding, hire 50 people, rent some offices, hire those workers and contract those services and burn $20M a month before you make your first sale. OK. Yeah. That's the only way. Don't forget the Aeron chairs and $500 stealth-wealth hoodies or whatever.
However else you feel, AI is a force multiplier, and that can also REALLY benefit "Artisanal work + Small Business"
I feel like the "one person app creator" business is so much more viable than it has been since Web 1.0
Five years ago, to run your own solo business in this space, you had to know most of the following: taxes, legal, backend, frontend, devops, iOS dev, Android dev, and marketing and then pay through the nose for most of the ones you didn't. AI helps to paper over a LOT of those gaps... and you can spend more time doing the shit that matters to your business.
You also needed time and lots of it, which is perhaps easy to come by if you're a trust fund baby or independently wealthy and don't have to work for a living but if you have a job and/or family is in extremely short supply
I used to run an online community on the side and I spent SO MUCH TIME doing IT/legal/finance drudgework that could have been spent, you know, engaging with the community and actually improving the product... that "artisinal work" for a "small business" you think you love.
There are of course major major problems with AI, like environmental concerns and others, but dichotomies like yours are not the way forward. At least not a good way forward.