The Dead Internet Theory: Are We Building Machines That Only Talk to Other Machines?
Explore the implications of the dead internet theory, AI-generated content, and how founders can promote authentic human connection online.
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Creator Economy
Explore creator economy essays and podcast conversations from Arvid Kahl’s Bootstrapped Founder archive.
Rethinking the Creator Economy
Is the creator economy a misnomer? When I think about creators and the effort and time they spend on their work, it seems similar to a 9-to-5 job. For most people, it’s a daily grind. It’s main focus…
Read the essay →Accessibility for Profit
Accessibility is one of the most overlooked aspects of being a creator, but it is an incredibly powerful tool to make long-term friends and, ultimately, more money. As a software developer, I learned…
Read the essay →Monetizing Micro-Communities
Micro-communities are —ironically— becoming a big thing. How big? Life-changing amounts of money big. And it starts with the virtual world. The internet changed my life, in so many ways. And not just…
Read the essay →Pet Rock Projects (And Why They… Rock)
Tony Dinh, a well-known indie hacker, recently shared an article about his Indie Hacker journey that reached the top of Hacker News. As usual, some people reacted negatively to an indie hacker…
Read the essay →What I Learned From 250 Podcast Episodes
This week, I celebrated the podcast reaching 250 episodes with my most recent interview with Amanda Goetz. Just last week, the podcast hit 250,000 overall downloads. These are numbers I never…
Read the essay →Human Creativity Amidst AI Dominance
Should you even write in a world dominated by generative AI? Isn’t your one brain competing with data centers that can do trillions of calculations per second where you can barely hold a single…
Read the essay →Things That Kill The Village
Online communities often remind me of villages, offering a sense of belonging, a place to grow roots, and a bustling exchange of ideas and services. I found my ‘village’ among sci-fi enthusiasts and…
Read the essay →The Flip Side: When Not to Build in Public
In the world of entrepreneurship, there’s been a growing trend towards building in public – the concept of sharing the journey of creating a product or a business with a public audience. I’m a big…
Read the essay →In Pod We Trust: How Creators Can Best Juggle Credibility & Sponsored Content
People would rather sift through fake AI results than see yet another ad. Something is happening in advertising, and the creator economy is affected greatly. The shift towards trust-based advertising…
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