Building was never the hard part
It's never been easier to build something, so everyone does. But the number of builders went up and the number of users didn't. Most of what gets made just sits there empty.
Everyone is building something now. An app over the weekend, a tool in an afternoon, a startup before lunch. No code, no team, no money needed. It's never been easier to make something, so everyone is making something.
And here's the part people miss. The number of builders went up. The number of users didn't.
Those are two different things, and it's easy to mix them up. Being able to build a product is not the same as having people who want it. We got a lot better at the first one and not at all at the second.
Because there are only so many people, and only so much time in the day. Building more apps doesn't create more reasons to use them. They all end up chasing the same attention, and there's never enough to go around. So we get more products than ever, and most of them just sit there empty.
It used to be that building was the hard part. That's why being able to build felt special. Now building is the easy part. The hard part is the thing it always quietly depended on: making something people actually want to use.
So the question isn't "can I build this?" anymore. Of course you can. Everyone can. The real one is the old one, and it matters more now than ever: does anyone actually want it?
I wrote about why building fast can work against you here: AI is killing most startups, and most don't realise it yet. </content>