If a tree fell down in a forest and there was no one to hear it, did it really exist?
Anonymous
No solution is worth anything if there is no one to use it.
As a new-age developer in the AI era, I believe a dual responsibility rests on my shoulders. If I am to solve a problem, I am responsible to build the solution to that problem reliably, and ALSO get it in the hands of the masses who face the problem.
Most devs stop and fixate on the first part. They put so much time, effort, energy and money into the first part and never even stop to consider the second. Because, in their heads, it is the responsibility of the authority above them, the manager, or the CEO who has to deal with the drudgery of marketing, brand creation, KPI and a gazillion other keywords to distribute the solution to the customers.
It only took the advent of generative AI to shake the paradigm so much that the value of the technical skillset that these devs so painstakingly mastered to go from something that was sought after and lauded to basically being able to be replicated by an LLM with a $20 subscription. It turned the attention to the other skill that was being thrown under the bus all along, the skill of distribution. I’d argue that this skill is just as, if not more important than being able to build the solution itself.
It takes a while to wrap your head around this. A solution without distribution is no solution at all. It is virtually non-existent. Meanwhile, a distribution, something so simple as a landing page to a product that doesn’t exist, with consistent hype on twitter and subreddits is more valuable, and more profitable. In this day and age, its not only possible but recommended to get people to pay you for a solution that you will be publishing soon.
It is of uber-importance for people to now master the skill of distribution, for it is what sells. Quite literally. AI has not managed to figure out the distribution channels (yet) as it still requires a human brain behind it. Only another human can understand how a human thinks and therefore optimize his distribution according to that information. And until then, that will be where the money lies.