alt.hn

7/20/2026 at 3:47:28 PM

I Stopped “Creating Content”

 https://refactoringenglish.com/blog/why-i-stopped-creating-content/

by mtlynch

7/20/2026 at 6:58:45 PM

You “create content” if what you’re after is just money, and “content” is this malleable goo you have to produce and shove it down the algorithm so that it gets “traffic”, another form of goo that gets “funneled” and “converted” into money.

In other words, it loses all (human) meaning.

So yes, if you care at all, you shouldn’t “create content”. You should be writing essays, recording tutorials, training, music, conversations, etc. the kind of things you care about, for an audience whose attention you don’t take for granted, hoping that they too will care at least a little. If they do, they will pay you because they will rather part with money than part with your work.

by danielciocirlan

7/20/2026 at 10:10:33 PM

A long time ago Simon Peyton Jones said Haskell tries to "avoid success at all costs".

He was being cheeky, but it honestly is how I try and approach most of what I do that isn't directly related to my employment (as a software person).

My blog posts are just for me; I don't market them, I don't expect anyone else to read them, I don't spam links to all my friends every time I post anything.

I have no idea if my writing could make any money in any universe, but since it's not my source of income I don't want to be beholden any kind of "monetization incentives".

by tombert

7/21/2026 at 2:21:20 PM

In must be noted that it should parse as (avoid (success at all costs)), not (avoid success)(at all costs).

That is, losing integrity for the sake of success is what's to be avoided, not success itself.

by nine_k

7/21/2026 at 3:43:01 PM

I appreciate this clarrification comment: had originally read this as option B and was wondering "why would they say this?"

by throwaway201606

7/21/2026 at 3:49:22 PM

I always read it as option b as well. I figured it meant they wanted to avoid the "too many cooks" problems that plagues all popular languages, and especially avoid extreme pressure from powerful "clients" to make specific changes. IE, was about control.

But ya, now that I see nine_k's comment, option makes a lot of sense.

by sodapopcan

7/21/2026 at 6:15:30 PM

I always took it as "make the 'best' decision [1] without regard for whether or not it's going to be popular or make the language more business-friendly".

[1] however you choose to define "best"

by tombert

7/21/2026 at 4:15:17 PM

Me too, but I think it means to avoid being constrained by success, like Python 2.

Elm took this a little to far.

by projektfu

7/21/2026 at 12:28:21 PM

> Haskell tries to "avoid success at all costs".

I wonder whether one could say the same about Zig these days. The maintainers conspicuously avoid to employ the usual methods for popularizing a new language that others seem to take for granted. Although I'm not (yet?) a user of Zig, I rather enjoy this different approach where quality (in the maintainers' view) outweighs quantity.

by cl4ptr4p

7/21/2026 at 1:43:39 AM

Same here.

I also write software for free, but it’s not a cry in the dark. It’s serious, ship-grade software, released into the App Store, and used by thousands.

It’s just not designed to make money.

by ChrisMarshallNY

7/21/2026 at 1:22:12 PM

I'd seriously suggest charging money for anything in the app store to offset the money it costs to publish in the app store. You can also offer a free version on your own website.

by inigyou

7/21/2026 at 1:33:52 PM

Yeah, but it's a long story. I do it for a very specific reason. I'm retired, and don't need the money. It's enjoyable, and many people benefit.

by ChrisMarshallNY

7/21/2026 at 2:04:52 AM

[dead]

by cindyllm

7/21/2026 at 10:25:26 AM

Commonplace book. Mine just happens to be (theoretically) public.

(This takes a lot of pressure off - I publish notes, half-finished thoughts, stuff I'll "get around to later" with no shame).

by flir

7/21/2026 at 5:50:04 PM

As a rule, I only write stuff if I feel like I have an opinion or take on something that isn't very common. I've abandoned half-written posts because I realized that I am not saying anything particularly unique or interesting, and I don't really see the point of writing about it.

Granted, being uninteresting has never really stopped me from writing long comments on HN...

by tombert

7/21/2026 at 11:00:59 AM

Software engineers, or at least the well compensated ones, are living proof that some level of UBI is beneficial. Look at all the works we have collectively created just because we don't have to worry about basic needs and actually have enough time and energy left to do the things we care about. Imagine if other professions had such luxury. Teachers in particular I'm very curious about.

I also think that the Cambrian explosion age of FOSS will soon be over, now that well compensated software engineers are a dying breed.

by ares623

7/21/2026 at 9:50:00 PM

I would argue a large percentage of us are creatives and that might have driven us to software engineering. That’s the case for me, at least. I love many other creative things but selected software for my job.

by codazoda

7/21/2026 at 1:13:31 PM

FOSS is a legal and political tool that removes catastrophic dependency risk.

It's not something that exists simply because software developers had free time to waste.

by otabdeveloper4

7/21/2026 at 1:23:39 PM

You can have commercial software with source or with reverse engineering rights. You can also just illegally reverse engineer it anyway - only matters if you get caught, and companies will only suffer civil penalties (fines).

FOSS is now mostly sponsored by commercial enterprises. The part that isn't sponsored is dying or has died. Linux was a silly project by one guy, where are projects like that now?

by inigyou

7/21/2026 at 3:02:04 PM

There are a lot of FOSS projects that aren't sponsored in a major way by corporations: LibreOffice, SQLite, the Linux desktop interfaces, a number of languages... I won't claim that corporations don't support those and others at all. Yes, many are attached to foundations for solid governance reasons. But there are many popular projects that largely exist outside of major corporate backing--especially direct financial support (as opposed to letting some engineers be involved part-time.

by ghaff

7/21/2026 at 3:11:35 PM

There are still a lot of smaller totally independent projects like this. I suspect that there are more—far more—just-for-fun projects today than in past decades in absolute terms.

I love Haskell, I've spent a lot of time in the general area around functional programming, types, proofs and PL, and there is still a vibrant community with lots of amazing non-commercial projects there. I'm sure the same is true in other areas of the programming world.

Ditto for the Emacs world. Emacs and its package ecosystem are amazing, better than they've ever been, and ≈entirely driven by non-commercial work.

Same for a big chunk of NixOS, although there's also been some real commercial investment there now.

I never really thought about it before writing this comment, but, except for games, most of the software I use and care about is primarily community-driven rather than commercial. And it's absolutely great.

Despite smaller communities and low monetary investment, a remarkable number of things about Haskell and Emacs and Nix are simply better than any commercial alternative, full stop.

The problem isn't that this kind of software has died—it's thriving more than ever—but just that the rest of the field has grown around it even faster. Programming is so commercially valuable that there has been a ton of investment in it and now we have millions of people for whom it's just a career, and trillions of dollars pouring into companies powered, primarily, by programming. It's a wild time. The overall feel of the field is definitely different now, but you can still find classic hacker enclaves. You just have to cut through the noise first.

by tikhonj

7/21/2026 at 5:43:34 PM

What this reminded me of was the fiasco of the McDonald's CEO referring to the Big Arch as a "product". Is it a product? Sure. That is about the least specific word he could have used for it, and it implies that he doesn't care that it is a cheeseburger, but that any type of item produced by any company he happened to lead would have made him equally happy.

It is likely true that he is just there to run a business and feels no sense of pride in its specific offerings, but the accidental honesty was amusing.

by hotsalad

7/21/2026 at 4:34:00 PM

To that end, I don't like creating that corpus of work _for social media_. As a musician, I don't think it converts to ticket sales. At a certain level it's required to keep a musician's name in the conversation if you're, say, a big EDM artist, but at that level it's nothing more than just a "dumb piece of content" without any of the labor of love you mentioned.

So then where as a musician does the content go on the internet if it doesn't convert? I feel I'd be better off putting up posters outside venues or some of those roller glue posters on boards in the artsy part of town.

by butlike

7/21/2026 at 12:17:15 PM

"so that it gets “traffic”, another form of goo that gets “funneled” and “converted” into money."

How is this any different from a small business hot dog stand, setting up outside a game to get more of the "traffic" instead of paying rent somewhere busy. You're a small business trying to get eyeballs, you do what you gotta do and call it what you want, instead of paying for ads like the big boys.

by pj_mukh

7/21/2026 at 12:34:36 PM

Hot dog stands don't often masquerade as creative expression.

by duggan

7/21/2026 at 7:21:59 PM

who gets to define what's real creative expression and what's not?

by pj_mukh

7/20/2026 at 8:46:50 PM

I agree with everything except the last sentence. Humans are not rational agents, doubly so when it comes to money and spending. There are many communities where charging even a nominal fee for your work leads to backlash due to built up expectations of free contribution.

by xboxnolifes

7/20/2026 at 9:11:31 PM

I'm not sure if they're irrational. Payment/subscription fatigue is a thing. Today it seems like you have to pay to breathe. It's suffocating. I often go through periods where I reject every money ask compulsively, the same way as I would "disconnect".

It's quite interesting how quality of life gets inverted in non intuitive ways. If you travel to a "developing country" you notice you are no longer bombarded with ads. Watching YouTube is close to the premium experience, bc the country presents no ad revenue to Google. You then travel to a "developed" country and you can't watch a 5 minute video without watching 2 ads.

Everything is a transaction, it is too easy to transact. People used to just write, to just make music. Sure, they need to eat, but they lie. You hear people that make insane amouns of money asking for a coffee. imho, writing is a thing you to to share knowledge, to have a conversation, to learn, etc. It is a way to also get people to know you better, and maybe learn about the things you do that they would want to pay for. So unless writing is your full time job, asking money for it leaves a bad taste.

by figassis

7/21/2026 at 4:05:33 PM

If it costs the audience something, they're demonstrating their sincerity. So one problem with giving stuff away for free is that you might doubt how much your fans really mean it. Maybe they're just taking free stuff on principle, maybe they're praising you for the pleasure of giving praise, if they don't put their money where their mouth is. Maybe I don't sincerely care about a lot of the free stuff I say I enjoy, it's hard to tell when there's no test of what it's worth to me.

Then again I suppose there's also an opposite sunk-cost effect where a fan feels obliged to insincerely say how great the thing is, because of being literally invested in it.

by card_zero

7/20/2026 at 9:33:56 PM

> I'm not sure if they're irrational. Payment/subscription fatigue is a thing.

Payment fatigue is an irrational thing, at least in the context of what a rational economic agent is. Rationally, you pay for what you value, at roughly what it is valued to you, and you don't pay for you want you don't value. Transactions are fatiguing precisely because we are not rational agents. Humans live primarily on emotion and ingrained behavior, with small bursts of applying logic.

by xboxnolifes

7/21/2026 at 12:19:37 PM

This does not sound like an accurate description of "rational agents". A rational agent may value something less because of a perceived second-order effect (e.g. "If I accept a price hike, there will be more price hikes in the future"). There's nothing non-rational about that.

In general, the "rational agent" abstraction is so flexible it can represent almost any real-world behaviour (which is why it's a bad model, not that humans are fundamentally irrational in some way).

by danlitt

7/20/2026 at 9:44:37 PM

It's not the core idea of "fatigue of paying for value" itself but something more akin to "fatigue of keeping track of which things were actually worth paying for, which starts to take more value than you can create with the same amount of time or could get with a few well thought out larger payments". It's usually brought up around subscriptions precisely because they are a lot of work to track but easy to forget.

by zamadatix

7/21/2026 at 9:25:07 AM

What if what I value is that something is not corrupted by monetary incentives?

by account42

7/21/2026 at 4:26:04 PM

For the producer, a nominal (at cost) fee is worse than an exorbitant one. better to have a few high paying customers first then drop the price inviting more than the other way around of charging nothing first then going up

by gofreddygo

7/21/2026 at 12:18:58 PM

At a certain point in the process, a little additional content multiplies the value of your existing efforts. But that is misunderstood (survivor bias?) as "make lots of content, because the successful people did".

by QuantumGood

7/20/2026 at 9:59:46 PM

I am so glad someone said this! I get really mad when a PR person writes the word content in the press release for my company. We don't create content.

To me "content" means you don't know what you are making or you are very embarrassed about it. We make art or entertainment that people pay for.

In general there are two axis I think about in media. One axis is originality, the other axis is durability. Very unoriginal is a transcription of information everyone already knows. Investigative reporting that reveals new information is very original. A creative story is original.

Durability is how long the thing will have some value. They can put the Wizard of Oz in Sphere today. A Tik Tok video will probably be forgotten in a day or two. You could call that "quality" but that's harder to define and measure.

Value is created in being as original and durable as possible. Platforms want you to be the opposite-- that's the slop they call content.

by georgeecollins

7/21/2026 at 10:12:50 AM

> "content" means you don't know what you are making

This again reminds me of the Telecom New Zealand rebranding. They changed their name from Telecom (meaningful) to Spark (maximally meaningless) and their logo from the word Telecom with a pair of wires passing through the O, to a Claude-esque generic inkblot (maximally meaningless). It gives the impression it got taken over by new management who have no idea what the company actually does, which is probably true.

by inigyou

7/21/2026 at 12:40:28 PM

More likely they don’t care what the company does. Sell cars or muffins, it’s all the same thing you just tweak numbers in a spreadsheet.

by inerte

7/21/2026 at 1:18:29 PM

That's fine for the finance department (just like how "content" is fine for backend programmers) but how can any serious business work when the CEO is business-agnostic? Capitalism has fucked up.

by inigyou

7/21/2026 at 2:51:36 PM

To be honest mass appeal does not mean great content! I launched an online business recently so Iam trying my best to post stuff that gets people's attention. I still get zero views on TikTok after two days.

by Fotis-Karmpas

7/21/2026 at 4:09:21 AM

> There is a tug of war between people and platform as such across this diagonal axis.

People want value whereas platforms want content, the incentives between a viewer and platform/content creator are getting broken because of the overhead incentive of the platform/content creator for money aka content.

There are some places where its not the case, namely wikipedia (aside from its recent controversies) and archive.org both being non-profit, though there are issues with non-profits as well in terms of their funding and other things. Open source being the example of it in terms of how much value it gives us but there is a lack of funding of that as well.

There has to be some balance in all of it but it seems that the balance is binary-like. Either we are seeing mostly open source underfunded software or we are seeing platforms/content-creators using their power for more money.

It also comes to the point that GP comment makes though, content is created by the expectation of profit and so that is its benchmark but value is created for something more emotional but people also like to eat food and would prefer to do so doing work on open source/the work they like for example but then it also pushes itself into content boundary rather than value.

@tombert has a comment about it which says that they are writing blogs and creating value for the sake of it because they have job on the side and its just the first example that I got reading this thread but many people actually create value as such, but as such they are creating value "in-spite" of incentives and the actual incentives are working on the opposite side of value creation.

It is similar to how actual Musicians in music industry are really exploited by all the systems around them yet they still create Music (value) in-spite of all of it because creating music (value) means more to them than all the issues and there is something human about creating value/music. Here's an extremely good video about it[0]

if money follows content and content follows money, perhaps content is just value which follows money and being shallow rather than something deeper and all these dynamics that interact with each other are leading to a tug of war in the first place.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx7baJMQuVA

by Imustaskforhelp

7/20/2026 at 8:11:56 PM

I'm sorry but my first thought after reading:

"You should be writing essays, recording tutorials, training, music, conversations, etc. the kind of things you care about... If they do, they will pay you because they will rather part with money than part with your work"

Is an AI company webcrawler sucking up your novel work, for free, only to goop it out to everyone else without compensating you a dime. And while you worked so hard to genuinely create something, that won't be amplified by internet algorithms so no real human will see it, another person will do a dance or be funny, edgy, unethical, controversial, and get 1000x the human eyeballs, money, and power - probably using AI to write the very words they regurgitate.

It's a sad world after all.

by randysalami

7/21/2026 at 7:19:58 AM

What you are saying is true. But YouTube/FB algorithms are deliberately skewed towards regular posters.

It's like your content of love that you produce once or twice a month won't be shown to the users at all.

Where do I get the time after job, family, friends and self-study?

So I don't create content like that at all. I write. And that's all.

But I also want to make videos. The recording, editing timeline is way too high. And then if your stuff is not shown to anybody, that's a huge bummer.

by __rito__

7/21/2026 at 4:58:09 PM

I would say creating content isn't important until you reach a critical mass of users (at which point it might help you stay relevant), since I don't think it converts well when you're a smaller creator.

by butlike

7/21/2026 at 9:01:08 AM

I follow many creators who only post a handful of times (if that) a year. They get tons of views, because the content is well made.

Stuff Made Here

Bobby Fingers

Boy Boy

Michael Reeves

..to name a few off the top of my head

(Of course, theses are mostly HUGE channels)

by mc3301

7/20/2026 at 10:31:49 PM

> If they do, they will pay you because they will rather part with money than part with your work.

Paying for access to "content" that isn't capital is a bizarre business model. The only reason it ever existed is because the medium (paper, videotape) was expensive. The smart reason you pay people is because you want them to continue producing, not because you want to continue consuming.

If I have something to say, it's a favor people are doing for me when they read it. In the real world, you beg for people to listen to you.

Influential people already know this. I don't sponsor people who do journalism or write about politics so I can entertain myself. I don't need them to continually convince me of things I already believe, and any entertainment that I get from the uncovering of corruption is prurient. The reason I send them money is so that other people might come to believe what I believe, and so that other people will see the corruption that I disapprove of.

Most other free "content creation" is in fact people advertising themselves as useful capital, hoping to be acquired by other people who think that they can make a profit. "Content creation" is a cargo cult; if you're lucky, 1) somebody sees you as capital and buys you, or 2) somebody else who shares your ability to profit off a related range of content notices you, and you create a mutually beneficial community.

If you're unlucky, you just do random stuff with no object. Or I should say very lucky, because you're already being subsidized by someone else - the proof is that you're eating and not cooking.

There's always been way too much "content," long before the internet. In fact, the internet is currently in the midst of an orgy of content destruction in order to protect capital, while criminals are the ones attempting to preserve and distribute that content.

by pessimizer

7/21/2026 at 12:47:25 PM

> The smart reason you pay people is because you want them to continue producing, not because you want to continue consuming.

I've said this a long time. I also don't want to be "gilding the lily": if someone makes plenty of money making the "content" I like, I would like to redirect my contribution to marginal work, something nice that almost doesn't get made. There should not be "content" multimillionaires, that's a failure of our collective incentive structures.

by vintermann

7/20/2026 at 7:57:08 PM

There are all kinds of people out there generating meaningful content on their own terms that will never get picked up by the algorithm. I hate the content mills as much as anyone else, but the fact is that they exist because internet economy rewards them. The entire ecosystem incentivizes the soulless "goo" you describe over the meaningful work people are doing.

Ice T said it best: "Don't hate the player, hate the game".

by CodingJeebus

7/21/2026 at 7:52:10 AM

"Don't hate the player, hate the game"

I believe lack of social ostracization is one of the reason we find ourselves in current state. Because players are what perpetuates the game.

by wolvesechoes

7/21/2026 at 12:35:15 PM

Yes, I've always disliked this saying. People have agency. They can always refuse to play the game (and that is precisely what many great people chose to do).

by oska

7/21/2026 at 1:25:20 PM

Refusing to play the game just means you lose the game. It isn't a third state, it's a resignation.

by inigyou

7/21/2026 at 8:56:16 PM

You can't resign from a position you never held or a game you never entered into

by oska

7/21/2026 at 10:15:33 AM

Capital is far more powerful than social ostracization. Consider the middle east situation: most of the money is on the opposite side from most of the people. You get kicked out of most groups for advertising that you support the money side. But the money side still won because it paid off everyone important.

by inigyou

7/20/2026 at 8:00:21 PM

You don't need to do that as an activity. You can earn money doing something more useful.

by ktallett

7/20/2026 at 8:26:10 PM

Entertaining people is useful! In my opinion, it is probably one of the most ethical ways to make money. I think game development is in that category too. It is a very pure field where you are giving a consumer something they enjoy and seek out.

by TACIXAT

7/20/2026 at 9:44:40 PM

Ethical all depends on if what you are doing is really you. Whether you are being you. The same way with any creative pursuit. There is a significant difference between creativity for creativities sake and creativity marketed to exploit.

by ktallett

7/21/2026 at 1:19:37 AM

Do you mean authentic?

by t0mpr1c3

7/20/2026 at 8:22:41 PM

The flexibility you bemoan in content creation is the exact same search people perform when running a startup. Finding product-market fit is a search process and content creators do the same thing. They see what customers like and focus in on that. Is it somewhat soulless? For sure. It is not unique to content creation though.

by TACIXAT

7/20/2026 at 11:38:02 PM

Since 2002 Richard Stallman has spoken again using term "content" this way.

> using the word as a noun to describe works and communications through which people have expressed themselves adopts an attitude you might rather avoid: it treats them as a commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money. In effect, it disparages all the works by subordinating them to the box that is full.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

by sltr

7/21/2026 at 7:40:41 AM

The entirety of that compilation of words is worth a read. I recommend checking out "Artificial Intelligence", "Consume", "Consumer" and "Monetize", "Players" and "Product"

by Pentamerous

7/21/2026 at 2:30:00 PM

Agree on a lot of this but not AI; it's already aged like milk.

In my view, you don't get to dismiss LLMs as "stochastic parrots" unless you can argue with precisely defined terms why you ain't one.

by myrmidon

7/21/2026 at 7:31:30 PM

Reading that article I feel almost like he's trying to defend the honor of the MIT AI Lab more than anything else. Fitting given he already died on that hill last time with Marvin Minsky.

by kmeisthax

7/21/2026 at 9:54:32 AM

I was searching for this exact link to share here, and then DuckDuckGo surfaced your post.

Reading this article a few years ago was extremely influential for me, as I had been feeling awkward for a while about how we (authors and videomakers) have been going from "sharing actionable information and advice" to feeding the platforms so we can get crumbs from their monetization efforts.

by sebastiennight

7/21/2026 at 10:45:26 AM

This was the first thing I thought of. Came to comments to search for Stallman. I was going to say I remember him saying it at least 15 years ago, but it's actually 24!

by globular-toast

7/20/2026 at 5:37:13 PM

I actually really like the term content creator, because it removes the artificial boundaries that come with being a writer, photographer, filmmaker, etc. and just lets you make stuff. The medium doesn't matter if you're a content creator, to a large extent.

The alternative is "art" but that comes with a lot of other baggage that often sounds unintentionally pretentious, especially if you aren't actually creating paintings/sculptures/traditional/contemporary studio art. The word creative used to serve a similar purpose, but nowadays I think it sounds both blasé and pretentious.

Yes, content does come with an expectation that you're creating things for an commercial audience; however, I think content is tied to media, and not merely any sort of created object. And so by extension you are participating in the global media sphere by making content, and not just painting for your own enjoyment.

It’s also worth pointing out that while Michelangelo did think of himself as an artist and a sculptor and painter, those professions were basically tradesmen at the time. The concept of high art, in the purely non-economic way we think of today, didn’t come for centuries after his life.

by keiferski

7/20/2026 at 6:00:36 PM

As an artist (former, really[0]), I can confirm that the medium really, really matters. It can inform the creation, as much as the creator.

There are top-shelf authors that insist on writing everything in cursive, in legal pads (God help the poor schlubs that have to transcribe it, though). They insist that they can’t be creative, otherwise. There are musicians (like Rhiannon Giddens), that always perform barefoot.

Most of the Great Masters could work in many mediums, and they chose specific media, to do specific works, because they knew that the medium would “push back,” and inform the work.

Michelangelo was quoted as saying something like he “saw the statue in the stone,” and that was why selecting the rock was as important as any other part of the process.

Many folks take great pains, to do their work in specific contexts, as that affects their creativity.

Creativity isn’t something that is easy to commoditize.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40917886

by ChrisMarshallNY

7/20/2026 at 6:04:04 PM

I meant that the medium doesn’t lock you into how others perceive you and your work. Not that mediums are interchangeable from the creator’s perspective.

by keiferski

7/21/2026 at 3:55:10 PM

You wrote all that without mentioning Marshall McLuhan? ;)

Also, I really like your artwork! I've bookmarked that link.

by sodapopcan

7/21/2026 at 6:51:33 PM

I don’t really consider him to be actually relevant, when discussing organic creativity.

by ChrisMarshallNY

7/21/2026 at 7:05:16 PM

Fair. It was indeed a throwaway comment and after I wrote it, medium is the message doesn't exactly work with what you are saying. For example, and author writing a novel on a legal pad, the legal pad is the not the final medium being "consumed."

by sodapopcan

7/21/2026 at 9:47:10 PM

We’re really talking about two media, here.

The media of creation, and the media of consumption.

Valid discussion.

by ChrisMarshallNY

7/21/2026 at 11:53:29 AM

> I actually really like the term content creator, because it removes the artificial boundaries that come with being a writer, photographer, filmmaker, etc. and just lets you make stuff. The medium doesn't matter if you're a content creator, to a large extent.

> The alternative is "art"

That's how you read the term. Unfortunately, for most of your potential viewers, "content" is "art" but commissioned by the ton, like beef.

by nottorp

7/20/2026 at 8:02:09 PM

If you are making meaningful things then you shouldn't be afraid to sound pretentious.

Everyone's so terrified that they might stand out.

by Jtarii

7/21/2026 at 1:50:37 AM

Heh. I have written stuff that has changed the world. Not in a big way, but thousands and thousands of people around the world use my stuff daily, and no one knows I had anything to do with it. I’m still at it. I’m getting ready for the first public test of a fairly ambitious app.

My friends use my stuff all the time, and they are always gobsmacked, when they find out I did it.

I do it for free, and tend to follow my own muse, as opposed to $_BUZZWORD_DU_JOUR, so tech folks aren’t really impressed, when I mention it (like, now, I suspect).

It’s not really very rewarding to talk about it. Either people get all impressed, or insulting (the typical HN reaction). Neither does much for me, so I’m best off just keeping my mouth shut, and my mind on my work. There’s others that are much better than me. I’m just grateful to be able to Give Back.

That’s not pretension; it’s just facts. But there’s often no need to mention the facts.

by ChrisMarshallNY

7/21/2026 at 5:03:58 PM

So what did you create? Can't really have a discussion beyond "good job?" without knowing.

by butlike

7/21/2026 at 5:27:21 PM

Nope. I see you already dinged the post. I think we’re done, here.

Good ol’ HN.

Have a great day!

by ChrisMarshallNY

7/21/2026 at 11:41:46 AM

I love it when you create something and somebody else uses the figure of speech you just crafted as if had been around for thousand years. Gives me a smile each time.

by 21asdffdsa12

7/21/2026 at 1:32:39 PM

What "$_BUZZWORD_DU_JOUR"? That's been around for quite a long time. I've been using it for over 15 years, and I know that I got it from someone else. The dollar sign is relatively new, but that's been used for all kinds of stuff, and I'm just following the herd, on that.

That you?

Cool.

by ChrisMarshallNY

7/21/2026 at 2:46:38 PM

The medium doesn't matter, because the majority of content creators are mediocre at best on making said "content". They are just good at selling you the idea that their content matters for you to waste your time with it. If your title is "content creator" your end goal is money/attention not making the content for the sake of making it.

by iamsaitam

7/21/2026 at 5:01:57 PM

Perhaps it's pretentious because you're _not_ an artist. The labels matter, to an extent. I'd rather see a movie from a filmmaker over a movie from a content creator, for instance.

by butlike

7/21/2026 at 6:42:37 PM

People here use meaningless titles all the time. That somebody calls themselves an artist shouldn't raise eyebrows anymore than somebody calling themselves a software engineer.

by criddell

7/20/2026 at 6:59:35 PM

"Content" is giving in to the idea that what you make only has value because it can fill some hole between ads in somebody else's CMS. What it is doesn't matter, it's just content. Meh.

> The alternative is "art"

Maybe. Or alternative could be to use the words you used in your first sentence: writer, photographer, filmmaker.

If you talk about your work using deflationary words like content then that could affect how you think about it and present it. Do yourself a favor and use grand words because I bet it's important to you.

by criddell

7/20/2026 at 6:15:46 PM

for me the distinction is that pre-"content" you created a website so you have a place to host your art; with "content" you produce art to have something to put on your website.

by zem

7/20/2026 at 6:44:05 PM

I agree. It's a generic word since it has a generic meaning.

I know there's a big bias against 'business speak' among engineers. But a lot of the time, it's just a matter of abstracting in a domain engineers typically don't work in. It's useful to describe from the 'business' point-of-view since terms like this can be used to analyze the similarities across these similar 'content creation' type businesses.

I'm trying to think of a similar case where to an outsider, the 'tech speak' jargon a software engineer would use seems useless to an outsider. Maybe things like 'framework', or 'deployment', or 'library', or web application instead of web site.

by golly_ned

7/20/2026 at 5:46:23 PM

I'm with you. I would prefer to be known as a "content creator" rather than a "woodworker" or "game developer" or "illustrator" or "writer" or "musician". Especially because all of that work tends to overlap all of the time. It feels so limiting to be described by a singular part of what I do. And I'm neurotic enough to want a 'comprehensive' word, rather than to slash myself to death in a description.

I don't particularly like the term "content creator". It feels too blunt and sterile to be particularly useful. But it does seem to be generally useful in how wide-reachingly descriptive it is.

by catapart

7/20/2026 at 10:38:16 PM

I perfer the term maker because its descriptive without the commercial aspect.

by AuthAuth

7/21/2026 at 4:09:55 PM

I'm also a fan of maker! Good shout. Though, I will say, I tend to see "maker" and "creator" as pretty interchangeable. Right up until the point of saying "content maker". That...doesn't feel right.

If nothing else, this blog post certainly invites scrutiny over how much feelings affect what classifications feel comfortable.

by catapart

7/20/2026 at 6:01:23 PM

Anecdata, but I find it funny you mentioning woodworker and musician. I build guitars and I play them. There is /some/ overlap, but only at the end result of me playing the guitar I have built. If I were to distill either of the two disciplines into 'content' each endeavor would lose its own individual meaning for me.

Being a musician has nothing to do with the output of working with wood, and likewise, my prowess on gouges, chisels, and saws is irrespective of my ability to write an interesting chord progression. Using a catch-all term to amalgamate the output of multiple specializations I think detracts from the results being, well... special.

Just my .02c

by rc5150

7/20/2026 at 9:03:10 PM

I can certainly understand that, but I don't lend any specialness to anything I do, which may be why I don't consider any of it as needing to be differentiated for its craft. It's very useful to be specific when going in to specifics, but it seems very pedantic to be specific when I'm being general or broad. It might stem from just having so many different areas of interest. Feels braggadocios to keep chiming in with "I do that too", when I could just cover everything with "I create various types of content".

Though, I will admit that I never include cooking in that. Food, for some reason, has never felt, to me, like "content". Can't say I've ever interrogated why.

by catapart

7/21/2026 at 2:52:11 PM

For one thing I think “art” doesn’t encompass informational content, or discussion.

Like it doesn’t fit podcasts at all really.

by neutronicus

7/20/2026 at 6:05:11 PM

I appreciate this push-back. I keep a running list of words like this...content, product, device, experience, space, vehicle, resource, etc. I can't put my finger on why, but all of these make me distrust the speaker.

by glial

7/20/2026 at 6:17:11 PM

Yeah I have a similar list. Mine also includes "journey". As soon as a word gets adopted by MBAs to abstract away the real world, it gets added to my list. They're words that project the idea of a smart person but only to stupid people.

by EPWN3D

7/20/2026 at 6:46:16 PM

Mine is "thought leader" - I've yet to meet someone who calls themselves that who's had a useful thought.

by bombcar

7/21/2026 at 4:31:23 AM

I know a few people who unironically call themselves that. They sound awesome, but scratch beneath the surface of what they say... there's nothing there.

by sevenseacat

7/21/2026 at 4:18:37 PM

I'm a thought leader. I thought I should lead.

by projektfu

7/20/2026 at 7:09:10 PM

I saw a news article recently where the headline was something about someone's "cancer journey". Maybe I'm old - only 51! - but I thought it was kind of a tasteless way to put it. That said, language is a malleable thing and no one needs my approval.

by lemonberry

7/21/2026 at 10:21:11 AM

For me, its "learnings" and "performant". We've had "lessons" and "fast"; what do those words not capture?

by theandrewbailey

7/21/2026 at 10:37:04 AM

performant is more loaded than 'fast'

by tosh

7/21/2026 at 10:48:54 AM

If you're not an English speaker, it's even more aggravating when speakers of your language replace common words with English ones to sound more sophisticated/corporate. So instead of using the native word for "knowledge", they'd use "know-how". (Of course using more common words like "knowledge" or "skill" are not good enough, you need something that sounds more sophisticated to the foreign ear, like "know-how".)

by xdennis

7/21/2026 at 1:26:30 PM

It's shibboleths. It signals they're part of the in-group.

by inigyou

7/20/2026 at 11:35:39 PM

I don't know how common it is but I can't stand "consume" for "eat/drink". Especially when used in the first person. Why would anybody say that about what they eat?

by dizhn

7/20/2026 at 6:45:25 PM

For me it's when companies talk about themselves as brands.

by duggan

7/20/2026 at 6:58:58 PM

What else would you call smaller companies and products within a company?

by tayo42

7/20/2026 at 7:12:18 PM

Whatever they are! Using the literal word "brand" in public messaging is leaking the marketing team's lingo to customers.

by duggan

7/20/2026 at 9:10:17 PM

Oh I see, you'd think they'd know better then to use jargon publicly...

by tayo42

7/21/2026 at 1:26:55 PM

If your company has several brands, call them brands. But it's usually not like that.

by inigyou

7/20/2026 at 9:34:42 PM

All these words are too broad is why. It allows someone to say something without really knowing what they mean. But also they may know what they mean, so you are not sure!

Device is a handy one though you often want to say "computer, laptop, tablet or phone" in one go. We could call them all computers but that would confuse people I think.

by mcapodici

7/21/2026 at 4:14:19 AM

Yeah exactly, It is meant to mean/sound something in a way which could impress people or get any desirable outcome but in reality it means nothing or sometimes even opposite in a way similar to double-speak, recent layoffs and how they are worded seems to be another example.

These words are sometimes like schrodingers cat and this is also what I have observed that within recent layoffs, its really hard to accurately find what the real intent behind it was within some companies and there is no wide consensus.

Perhaps this is their true purpose, to hide the real intent behind things and perhaps (to give the benefit of doubt?)

by Imustaskforhelp

7/20/2026 at 6:10:23 PM

They're ambiguous words when there's no reason to not be more specific, so either the speaker is lazy or intentionally trying to muddy the waters.

by ambicapter

7/20/2026 at 6:32:04 PM

It’s a conflict of interest. When people organically create things online with no incentive except the love, you can give them a lot of trust. Once someone goes from that to manufacturing “content” (or even worse goes from nothing to “content”) there’s major incentive to either shill for some product for compensation, or to generate outlandish things that get more clicks, views, likes, subscribes. All of this is antithetical to creating about a subject because you enjoy the subject.

From about 1998-2008 I ran one of the largest sites on the internet for a particular niche. Zero advertisers, no ads, no shady links, just content about a subject I loved. I worked hard to make sure it was accurate and up to date. Now someone creating the same site would be loads of referral links or paid ads, so no trust whatsoever in what’s being presented.

by ohyoutravel

7/20/2026 at 6:38:15 PM

This makes sense to me.

I get a similar ick when I hear someone say "I enjoy consuming this type of content." They're not selling anything, but they are still adopting the soulless language. Like, if it still exists after you interact with it, you haven't consumed anything. Second, do you really see yourself this way? Why not just say "I love to read travel blogs"?

by glial

7/20/2026 at 6:12:36 PM

Content used to be a bad word, now kids want to become content creators when they grow up.

I was hired at a job the very same day Google released their first Panda update[0]. This was the update that nuked all content farmers from search results. It was complete chaos, I sat in an empty cubicle, not knowing if I should stay or leave while the manager cursed and paced. Our ad revenue went from millions to zero, overnight. Unfortunately, they figured out a trick to game google. Which I guess meant I remained employed.

[0]: https://idiallo.com/blog/content-is-bad

by firefoxd

7/20/2026 at 7:43:56 PM

Truly curious - why did you choose to work at a content farm?

by ekelsen

7/21/2026 at 1:27:06 PM

Im not the OP but most people outside of HN don't have multiple offers to job hop between FAANGs so the choice becomes "make money to survive or not".

by yellowpencil

7/20/2026 at 8:14:37 PM

Money Why would you work for Insurance, Defense, military, Amazon, killing kittens R Us.

Money.

by elictronic

7/20/2026 at 8:28:59 PM

Defense and Military you can want to work there for such nebulous ideas such as serving your nation, protecting your loved ones, security, etc. This would require you to actually believe in said abstract concepts like nationalism, community, family, culture, or truth, so that you actually want to defend your homeland though. This is easier to believe for me than the innumerable start ups that were making the world a better place via ad placement click through rates.

by ecshafer

7/20/2026 at 8:58:37 PM

"I want to be a Kardashian when I grow up..."

by pluralmonad

7/20/2026 at 5:26:47 PM

This resonates with me. I’ve always found the term annoying, because it felt like it was distilling artistic expression down to its most abstract form: content. If all you’re producing is abstract “content,” why should I participate? What makes it special?

by sgarland

7/20/2026 at 5:56:21 PM

I feel the same way. I want to watch movies and listen to music and read books! I don't want to "consume content." That phrase feels like it reduces my role to just be a generic pac-man gobbling up whatever bland grays dots of vague content are "created" and set down in front of me. That's not what it should be.

by ryandrake

7/21/2026 at 3:27:41 PM

I’m pretty sure that is exactly what your role is to the companies in the content business

by pastel8739

7/20/2026 at 6:46:18 PM

I see that abstraction as the purpose of the word when viewing it from a 'business' context: when assessing businesses of the same kind, the actual thing that's being produced matters a lot less.

I'd suppose that blog writers and video producers have a lot of the same kinds of business problems: how people can discover [the thing they create] and spread awareness of it or make money off it.

In order to be able to discuss this category of business, it's useful for writers and video producers to be able to relate to each other by abstracting out the thing that actually makes them distinct and particular.

I see it less as devaluing that special thing and more as a lens to put on or take off when certain audiences are interested in the 'non-special' aspects of running businesses based on that special thing.

by golly_ned

7/21/2026 at 10:21:55 AM

It's bad that this even works in a business context. A business that treats itself as producing undifferentiated slop to fill the slop-trough of TV attention time should lose out to every business that produces Stranger Things, or produces Avengers, or produces any other specific thing because that business actually knows and cares what it's making.

But it does not.

by inigyou

7/20/2026 at 6:17:41 PM

People seem to be content with content.

by ClikeX

7/21/2026 at 11:29:45 AM

To be fair, the people who are producing capital-a Art are mostly producing crap as well.

Whatever you call it, I participate to find out if it’s crap or not.

by paulcole

7/20/2026 at 6:00:18 PM

I believe there is a material difference between "content" and other modes of creative output: content is defined by a pipeline. It is desired for it's recurring revenue.

You could make the tackiest, most commercial and derivative musical, but it's still not content because it's just one.

You could make the most eloquent, poetic and inventive podcast in the world, but so long as you are still doing weekly releases (with ads, plus an ad free patreon, of course) it is content.

The tragedy is that we want artists to have reliable income, but the business models, incentives and consumption habits that come with the reliable output to provide that reliable income lead us to the ugliness that people blame on "content".

by advisedwang

7/20/2026 at 8:05:50 PM

> The tragedy is that we want artists to have reliable income

If artists create art that people are willing to pay for, great!

I don't really want to pay artists for art I don't like.

I remember when Nirvana suddenly became successful. Many in the local community called them "sellouts", which is quite unfair.

by WalterBright

7/20/2026 at 9:00:36 PM

I like the kind of output artists make when they work on individual creative projects. I don't really like the kind of output artists make when they feel they need to crank out something every week that has to have roughly equal appeal to the exact same audience.

But the way the internet (and other mass media) scales means that only the latter can really have a business model and reliable income attached.

by advisedwang

7/20/2026 at 10:11:37 PM

Lots of people have erratic income, such as anyone who owns a business. The options are:

1. buy a Lambo, then get it reposessed

2. save/invest on the peaks

by WalterBright

7/21/2026 at 10:22:35 AM

That's a problem.

by inigyou

7/21/2026 at 3:24:59 AM

I think artists are too attached to solo work and should hire people to crank out variants on their successful vision or license their ideas so that they can continue having new ideas.

by Eridrus

7/21/2026 at 4:33:09 AM

Songwriters do this! Write the songs, give them to others to perform

by sevenseacat

7/21/2026 at 12:29:21 PM

I’m reminded of other writers, like Seth Godin. He takes a different tone when he speaks of the privilege to share ideas with others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Godin

by xtiansimon

7/21/2026 at 9:51:48 AM

So the main issue here is that corporate language is dehumanizing? Well, "human resources" might have been a hint, I suppose!

I have to agree. It is dehumanizing. But, it's unfortunate, because the language of business is the language of business. We have this one. We don't have a separate, identically shaped one, made up of nicer sounding words.

Would be nice if we did, though.

by andai

7/21/2026 at 4:59:18 PM

> We don't have a separate, identically shaped one, made up of nicer sounding words.

We do though. It is a kind of virtue signaling to use the evil version.

E.g. "Human Resources Department" is called "Personnel Department" in non evil business speak.

To be fair "HR" is going the way of Thermos nowadays though.

by rightbyte

7/21/2026 at 3:15:50 PM

David is the first instance of "awe" I had in my life. I truly feel blessed to have had that qualia, even if for a few seconds, to witness something larger-than-life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awe The fact that so many people report awe feelings with David hints at something very grand about Michaelangelo, or even humanity at large.

Did I feel that way because I did not expect the statute to be so large ? The strength displayed to be so soft ? Was there something in the air ?

The only other instance I had of such a feeling was at the Lake Louise, in Alberta (Canada). In both moments, I could remember the thought of seeing something that could not be in any point better than it is.

by Dependance

7/21/2026 at 3:29:03 PM

Lake Louise is absolutely breathtaking. Highly encourage everyone to give it a visit if they can.

by joenot443

7/21/2026 at 11:40:19 AM

He who packs himself into a container to please the merchant - is a square.

by 21asdffdsa12

7/21/2026 at 1:29:59 PM

That's a great one!

by imaginationra

7/20/2026 at 8:08:15 PM

In Molly Lambert's "Jennaworld" podcast, she says that Playboy . com was the one of the first places to use "content" in the way it gets used these days. I definitely believe it; there are a lot of euphemisms in that world!

by 1-more

7/21/2026 at 10:19:31 AM

"Asset" also has an, uhm, meaning in that world that is compatible with the bizspeak use.

by account42

7/21/2026 at 12:32:51 PM

I wonder if anyone has thoughts on the future of “content”? I ask this because of the general adoption of LLMs for information seeking.

On one side, I think that those who manage to generate a trusted audience can benefit from this as LLMs generate generic content.

On the other side, people could get so used to generic content — like Tik-Toks — that it will only be a handful of people coming to those generating thoughtful content.

by 0x4e

7/21/2026 at 12:53:29 PM

In a way, the YouTube channels I follow are like cable: they produce content of different genres and topics on a regular basis and serve it to me. There's another way to use YouTube, though: you can search for a video and find what you want exactly.

The way I use video is unlikely to be completely taken over by AI. Sure, producers might use some AI along the way, but people will continue valuing genuine programming, be it educational, comedy, news etc.

But I expect the second kind of content, the one you search for, to be mostly consumed by AI video and AI summaries as time goes on.

by lopis

7/21/2026 at 12:37:10 PM

It's an odd thing, because the reason the word content is used is to permit diversity, but it seems to be widely rejected by those who claim to value diversity.

It's a good man who can bring home the sculpture that his wife likes at the end of his workday.

But why does it have to be him, and his wife, and a sculpture.

Surely the merit is in the person who brings the content that their partner likes, no matter where or when, or what.

by Lerc

7/20/2026 at 6:05:06 PM

Different people should use different words.

I don't think a content creator would naturally describe themselves as a content creator. The word is useful for contexts where you need to generalize over all the different types, but that's not useful when speaking about yourself. So a writer says "I'm a writer", not "I'm a content creator." But writing this paragraph, I needed a word to generalize.

P.S. The closest alternative word might be artist, but it's not quite right--some writers are artists and some aren't.

by hyperpape

7/20/2026 at 6:55:54 PM

I agree, and the audience also matters too. A writer speaking to writers at a writing workshop? "I'm a writer." A writer at an independent business conference? "I'm a content creator", as a means to relate to people making videos, blog posts, photographs, tweets, etc.

Some 'content creators' might also do: videos, blog posts, photographs, tweets, and a lot of other activity that drives the same business: getting user 'engagement' for sponsorship or advertising revenue.

by golly_ned

7/21/2026 at 3:07:21 AM

Thank you to the author for questioning this ridiculous terminology

"Content" implies there is something else, besides content, that is found on the www

It's garbage, not The New Yorker, for example

When data collection, surveilllance and advertising is the sole "business model" then traffic is the business goal, not "content" (The New Yorker does not rely 100% on advertising, it also has subscription revenue)

"Content is king" but it is not an absolute requirement for traffic

That's why "Big Tech" companies are intermediaries (middlemen), they do not need to create "content"

Website operators without content have been buying traffic since the early years of the www

The www is infested with middlemen with no content

They profit from traffic

Content makes good bait for traffic but Big Tech cannot charge subscriptions for it because it isn't theirs; they have to pay for a license

by 1vuio0pswjnm7

7/20/2026 at 6:43:21 PM

I make electronic music as a hobby, and I feel the same way about the term "producer".

I understand the history behind where that term came from. (The people who were making musical decisions while standing behind the mixing board often were initially producers: people whose job it was to oversee the entire production and coordinate between the musicians, engineers, etc. Then when DJs at discotheques wanted longer versions of songs for dancefloors, remixes were invented. Producers took existing recordings and made longer versions. Then electronic dance music sort of evolved out of that.)

But it still feels like such a soulless term. And most "producers" today are just sitting at home alone with a laptop and Ableton, so the role is very different than it was.

by munificent

7/20/2026 at 8:07:53 PM

Michael Jackson was smart enough to hire Quincy Jones to produce his albums, and his work took a great leap forward as a result.

by WalterBright

7/20/2026 at 9:02:38 PM

Oh yeah, Quincy Jones was a genius. I listened to the whole "Off the Wall" album a while back with headphones on and it's just a sonic masterpiece.

by munificent

7/20/2026 at 9:32:25 PM

Yes one of my very favorite albums! I'd put it in my top 10 easy, and I listen to a lot of music. I still remember when a friend of mine dropped the needle and I heard it for the first time.

The Thriller album is more popular, but I like Off The Wall better.

by WalterBright

7/21/2026 at 10:23:53 AM

It is a strange word now that you mention it, but is there another word for someone who makes electronic music offline?

by inigyou

7/21/2026 at 1:39:47 PM

"Musician" is the obvious answer but so many people who make electronic music are hesitant to call themselves that, maybe because they think you have to have mastered some physical instrument to call yourself that?

by munificent

7/21/2026 at 1:46:53 PM

It has a live physical instrument connotation to me as well.

There are people who play synthesisers live, whether on a keyboard with a pre-set patch, or a modular synthesizer making experimental sounds. I'd call them musicians with only a little hesitation. But if they do it offline and record it? Less sure.

Also, is Taylor Swift a musician?

by inigyou

7/21/2026 at 3:31:11 PM

> is Taylor Swift a musician

If only for her being a singer, I don't see how she _wouldn't_ be a musician

by williamdclt

7/20/2026 at 4:08:11 PM

For me the term users sometimes sounds similar to traffic. I prefer customers - that you serve with your product.

by pinter69

7/20/2026 at 5:10:28 PM

The term "user" maybe made sense before any software was commercialized. It differentiated the programmer of the software from the non-programmer that used the software. Even then it was sometimes used derogatorily (especially when people were sneered at as "Lusers"). In the original Tron the Good Guys had to fight for the users.

Customer is a much nicer term. Words do matter.

by krupan

7/21/2026 at 1:29:45 PM

Even in a commercial context they aren't the same. The user is who sits in front of the screen, and the customer is who you have to please to make money.

by inigyou

7/20/2026 at 4:45:03 PM

I feel that all the terms mentioned are useful in specific contexts. Web traffic brings visitors to your resource. If they read your blog, they become readers. If they use your products, they become users. When someone buys something from you, they become a customer.

by neochief

7/20/2026 at 5:12:03 PM

OP here. Thanks for reading!

> I feel that all the terms mentioned are useful in specific contexts. Web traffic brings visitors to your resource. If they read your blog, they become readers. If they use your products, they become users. When someone buys something from you, they become a customer.

I'll respectfully disagree. I think those terms make sense if you're talking in general terms, but if you're an individual person talking about your work, they're generic catchall terms with better alternatives.

Like, in concrete terms, let's say I publish funny cartoons on my website and sell prints of those cartoons. It doesn't make sense for me to say "web traffic brings visitors to my resource." What traffic? What resource? It would be more meaningful to say, "Visitors find my website through Google search."

by mtlynch

7/20/2026 at 8:38:41 PM

Even more concrete, IMHO: "People find my comics through Google search. Some of them become fans and subscribe."

by egypturnash

7/20/2026 at 7:07:59 PM

Totally agree with this one: being an indie business owner, you can do it however you want.

by neochief

7/20/2026 at 6:21:15 PM

Surprisingly it was quite easy to read the blog post and well written. However, the author definitely has the gift of gab in writing in terms he can write about anything, but at the same time convey nothing meaningful

by sajithdilshan

7/20/2026 at 6:41:11 PM

This is the most polite diss I've ever read

by NetOpWibby

7/20/2026 at 6:32:40 PM

It’s AI slop, that’s why.

by ohyoutravel

7/20/2026 at 6:35:43 PM

OP here. I wrote the post myself with no AI (modulo grammar checks).

What makes you think it's AI-generated?

by mtlynch

7/21/2026 at 1:59:38 PM

Not directly the answer, the only weird part (albeit not LLM alike attribution) would the use of 'reach out', after the negative attitude towards corpo-speak. "Contact", "call," "talk", "meet", etc. would be a lot better/normal/human words.

by xxs

7/20/2026 at 10:03:28 PM

The answer is quite patently that, in this brave new world, people with noticeable writing skill will face that false cry on a regular basis from the literary lowest-common-denominator.

by crtified

7/20/2026 at 6:45:29 PM

I keep getting people saying they think my posts are AI-generated because I use hyphens in sentences (not M-dashes though, I can never remember the compose key for it), and because I use the term "load bearing" in a pisstakey way - like for instance, "yet another instance of load-bearing idiocy by management".

by ErroneousBosh

7/20/2026 at 5:24:32 PM

The first paragraph seems to insinuate that "content" is replacing "art", but that doesn't seem at all related to what the author's actual work looks like, nor does it seem related to the thrust of the argument, which is about how descriptions of your work influence how you think about it. The entire blog looks more like "content" than David to my eyes, but maybe that's because most of the blog predates this shift in the author's thinking?

by miyoji

7/20/2026 at 5:29:54 PM

OP here. Thanks for reading!

I'm not trying to argue that art is sacred and we have to hold it up over everything else, but I am joking that there is still an implicit boundary where we don't use "content" to refer to things that we respect highly.

I think a lot of people that talk about "art" vs. "content" are talking about art vs. business, but I'm more arguing about big vs. small and aggregation vs. individuality.

It makes sense for YouTube and Twitter and Facebook to refer to everything on the Internet as "content" because there's so much variety and those platforms are trying to capture all of it. But I just realized it's silly for me, an individual author to refer to my work as "content" when I could just as easily say "book" or "blog posts."

by mtlynch

7/20/2026 at 5:36:15 PM

I got all of that, I just found the David example to be distracting from and unrelated to the more interesting argument that you're making, which I do agree with, and which I think you summed it up neatly here:

> I just realized it's silly for me, an individual author to refer to my work as "content" when I could just as easily say "book" or "blog posts."

by miyoji

7/20/2026 at 6:18:11 PM

As regular reader of his blog, the David example worked for me because I felt revulsion for a second. I had to double check the URL to make sure I was reading the right blog. "When did he embrace the LinkedIn broetry?"

Which, I believe, was the intention.

by firefoxd

7/20/2026 at 5:47:26 PM

I appreciate the critique!

Sometimes when I'm thinking about a blog post, I fall in love with a joke I want to use, but then it constrains how I think about the topic. I still like the David example, but I'm too close to the post to have a balanced perspective, just having finished it today.

by mtlynch

7/21/2026 at 2:21:17 PM

It made perfect sense to me, FWIW.

Paintings, sculptures, blog posts, HN comments, etc. are all examples of different things that can be reductively viewed as "content" by those who only want to exploit them for profit, just like the illustration shows. I don't think the article is saying that these things are all the same.

by ptx

7/20/2026 at 9:33:08 PM

Yes I agree. Content is an empty word, and can mean anything, and sort of means nothing. I get why large corporations would want to use the term as they do everything in bulk and need a general term, but for a solo writer, youtuber, etc, better to think of it as the thing, e.g. "tutorial", "podcast", "exploration".

by mcapodici

7/20/2026 at 8:25:46 PM

Bill Gates is responsible for the proliferation of the term "content". We can add this to the list of his other crimes.

by ecshafer

7/21/2026 at 12:03:33 PM

The article failed to use the word "amazing" to describe anything and everything.

by assimpleaspossi

7/20/2026 at 7:21:13 PM

Despite not quite being an artist, this resonated with me. This fits well in line with my favourite example of corpo-speak: "challenge" instead of "problem". Lately, I find myself replacing these two in my mind occasionally when reading them and the texts still don't change their meaning.

It's a bit depressing watching language get shallow …

by minusLik

7/20/2026 at 6:50:35 PM

Great article, I see it is very similar. To me it's about learning, not "producing" — as Jason Fried said [1]:

> I've never created content, I've written things down. > I've never created content, I've said things out loud. > I've never created content, I've recorded a video. > I've never created content, I've shown someone around. > I've never created content, I've pointed something out.

[1] https://x.com/jasonfried/status/1831763756856307880

by zazuke

7/20/2026 at 9:00:16 PM

> When I found myself using a corp-speak term, I questioned whether there was another word that felt more natural and communicated the same thing.

In other scenarios the non "corp-speak" term feels kind of wrong and the "corp-speak" one is actually better though. I feel like this is all just a realization about what the goal of the business actually is and a realization of just how many different goals you could have. In this case it sounds like it's just to do some good writing, not to grow for the sake of making more money or whatever else. And that makes a huge difference in how you talk about it of course.

Also if someone used the word "lead" I'd conclude that they... work in sales? How can that mean anything about whether they'll be helpful to you or not?

Ok one more thought: sometimes the corp-speak feels way less stuck up than "oh actually, I'm a writer. I measure progress not from other people being willing to pay me some money, but in terms of my own highly refined taste. I have many leather-bound books, and..."

by ngriffiths

7/20/2026 at 8:23:31 PM

I stopped creating (public) content when Facebook was launched. Totally missed I had to announce it here.

by MASNeo

7/21/2026 at 10:22:12 AM

Did you also stop reading articles beyond their titles then or is that a more recent development?

by account42

7/21/2026 at 10:26:16 AM

Charlatan Wonder is one of the channels I watch on YouTube. For the past few years he's been signing off every one of his videos with a rant against "content" that largely mirrors this blog post. He tells people to not describe what they do as content. It is art. Content was a word made up to feed your art into a slop machine that makes someone else's line go up.

https://m.youtube.com/@CharlatanWonder

by theandrewbailey

7/20/2026 at 3:56:19 PM

A good point overall. It's skin-deep, though. Do you think a catch-all name is useful for something like content? Is it only distasteful on the internet/TV/etc. because of the negative impacts of mass-production and commoditisation, or is the idea itself inherently distasteful?

by stopamertime

7/20/2026 at 5:09:02 PM

OP here. Thanks for reading!

I don't really have anything against the existence of the catchall term "content." Like, I don't expect the CEO of YouTube to say, "music, short film, art, comedy, journalism, ..., creators" every time he talks about YouTube users. It makes sense from their perspective to bucket everything into "content."

The thing I found interesting was just that the language had crossed over to people where it doesn't make sense to bucket everything. If I'm a blogger, I can just say "blogger" and it's more meaningful than "content creator" but I think the people running small businesses or doing creative work have needlessly adopted the big bucket terminology of "content."

by mtlynch

7/21/2026 at 10:25:02 AM

It's still weird the YouTube CEO would say "content" instead of "videos"

by inigyou

7/20/2026 at 5:02:22 PM

The author addresses this, no?

> But I did notice an immediate change, especially with words like “traffic.” Traffic makes me feel like I’m just throwing out flypaper and measuring whatever sticks. When I describe website visitors as “readers,” it reminds me that these are real people who have literally billions of other things they could be reading that day, but they’re choosing to spend some of their limited time with me.

by azeirah

7/20/2026 at 5:22:03 PM

Stanley Kubrick, Kane Parsons, and Mr. Beast walk into a bar. Bartender says, "Sorry,we don't serve content creators here."

Who gets kicked out?

by nancyminusone

7/20/2026 at 11:31:29 PM

Kane Parsons is 20 years old

(Sorry to use a meme but I couldn't drop this oddly perfect opportunity. Also Kane Parsons is 21 years old)

by c-hendricks

7/20/2026 at 6:33:41 PM

"content" is meant to trigger the novelty reward , thats why we don't get classics among content creators. But i think we all agreed that AI has put an end to this content-monetization era.

by seydor

7/21/2026 at 12:49:41 PM

man!, I've always struggled with creating content, volume and frequency of creating it has been an issue for me

by CatalystPz

7/20/2026 at 6:17:32 PM

Digital marketing creative investment into audience experience with goal of subsequent monetisation. Like and subscribe.

--

I could not resist playing this game of words...

by podgorniy

7/20/2026 at 5:32:26 PM

after discovering most of my content has been scraped thousands of times, I don't have any willingness to continue posting my blog. Well, yes, I was expecting that (you know.. by publishing content on the net, everyone could read it -- and profit off!). I've some content for some months, including some analysis.

I wish somebody could motivate me to publish them anyway.

by serhack_

7/20/2026 at 5:35:35 PM

Would you feel the same way about creating open source software that had been forked 1,000's of times and used without your knowledge? Are you interested in living in a world where everyone only does things if they feel they can directly capture the majority of the value created?

by jasonshen

7/21/2026 at 10:26:29 AM

Most people do actually feel that way when Amazon forks their software and monetizes it. They respond by relicensing as SSPL but it's too late and everyone uses the Amazon fork. This happens regularly.

by inigyou

7/20/2026 at 8:43:24 PM

There's a whole world of software that people are expected to pay for, one way or another. Some programmers choose to release their work for free. And some people use the paid software without paying. We call those people "pirates".

Are you interested in living in a world where nobody can make a living off of their creative work?

by egypturnash

7/21/2026 at 10:26:42 AM

I am interested in living in a world where creative works were not motivated by money and influenced by the incentives that come with that.

by account42

7/21/2026 at 10:26:51 AM

We already live in that world because of corporations.

by inigyou

7/20/2026 at 8:57:08 PM

There's a difference between giving your neighbors eggs from the chicken you raise, and the local chain hotel including them in their breakfast buffet.

Even if the output is free, you might enjoy the community, the gratitude or other indirect rewards.

by nicbou

7/20/2026 at 5:49:45 PM

I don’t think it is majority of the value created, but it might have to be a significant portion of the value expended to make it worthwhile at all.

by cwmoore

7/20/2026 at 6:00:19 PM

When those forkers are large corporations then it probably should make most people think twice.

by tonyedgecombe

7/21/2026 at 10:23:20 AM

Why should anyone motivate you if what you have is just interchangeable "content"?

by account42

7/20/2026 at 6:01:29 PM

> They can’t do what we do. And they hate us for it.

You could make a plausible conspiracy theory that this was why so much capital was invested to develop generative AI: Maybe the holy grail of tech CEOs wasn't AGI, it was a web full of content without those annoying content creators...

by xg15

7/21/2026 at 1:34:26 PM

It was to replace workers. That's the holy dream of all capitalists - free revenue with no need for actual work or costs. In other words, becoming a landlord. But what is the land in the analogy? They can only hope to have something to hold onto, maybe a brand with goodwill or being the only one with a certain LLM.

by inigyou

7/21/2026 at 12:31:45 PM

"Content" is usually a perfectly good term, at least in most contexts people use it for, shapeless slop that fills the void of the empty vessels most people are

by toasty228

7/20/2026 at 5:51:34 PM

I think it helps to draw a clear boundary between what is "content" and what is "art", since they ultimately serve different purposes and have vastly different factors that go into their creation. To me, "content" is anything created with the goal of maximizing consumption, whereas "art" is an attempt to express or give form to some kind of idea or emotion. The lines blur when you get to things like film, where those two goals often compete, but it's pretty easy to put things into these two categories.

And this isn't to say that "content creation" is any less valid than "creating art". There are plenty of "content creators" who know exactly what they are making at the end of the day (a product) and don't hide that fact or try to dress it up under the pretense of being anything more.

by jun_lung

7/20/2026 at 8:55:12 PM

What about really good information? Instructions? Guides?

by nicbou

7/20/2026 at 8:26:12 PM

When I hear people use the generic word "content" it grinds my gears. It lacks any sort of deep meaning, and feels insulting when applied to genuine work that real humans poured their sweat, time, energy and passion into creating and perfecting.

There's slop, and there's masterpiece. In which would you rather invest your time? (Either creating or 'consuming'?)

by rkagerer

7/20/2026 at 8:54:07 PM

It's one level of abstraction below "enrichment"

by nicbou

7/20/2026 at 7:21:25 PM

Words matter. If you use words that remove meaning to describe a thing, then the thing itself will have have diminished meaning. It's the same with politicians using dehumanizing words to describe a group of people that they want those listening to think of as less than human; "illegals" as topical example.

Ie. If you see yourself as a 'content creator' then the best you're going to be is a slop merchant. If you see yourself as an author or a writer then you at least have a chance at being a real artist, like Michaelangelo.

It uses lots of words to make it's point which, for me, smacks of 'content' (I was expecting there to be a recipe at the end). They haven't stopped 'creating content' but they're attempting to stop calling it that.

That's what I got out of it anyway. But then again I may just be salty that I'm not also a Don Draper (slop merchant).

by BLKNSLVR

7/21/2026 at 11:27:27 AM

To me, this (whether or not “content” is a good word to use) is very similar to Comic Sans discourse.

The stronger you feel about it and the more you seem to enjoy sharing your opinions on it, the less interesting you become.

by paulcole

7/21/2026 at 1:31:16 PM

Does this mean you think you are uninteresting?

by inigyou

7/21/2026 at 3:53:33 PM

Absolutely!

by paulcole

7/20/2026 at 5:54:34 PM

I'd give this article multiple upvotes if I could.

The first section did a great job of grabbing my attention. It feels like these days, all creative works are lumped together as "content", anything not brand-new and bleeding-edge is labelled "legacy" (I see this more on HN than anywhere), and everything is distilled down to "engagement" and "conversions".

I hate business buzzword-jargon, the corporate in-group lingo, and I've also always disliked this use of the word "content". It's too generic - we might as well be calling it "stuff".

As a child, I used to notice that there were some other kids who, upon hearing a word that was new to them, would immediately start using it incessantly, replacing the (sometimes richer) choice of words they'd thus far been brought up to use. Very often wrongly, by slightly misunderstanding the meaning, the context, or the word itself, and never checking first. It was clear how the choice of words used, or even the meaning of words, could subtly change within a small group. As I grew older I realised these people appeared to be in the majority, and that it showed how, via various methods of trying to sound clever or in-group signalling, changes in speech patterns spread out across the larger population.

Anyway that's my view, now I'll go back to yelling at clouds.

by abanana

7/21/2026 at 4:18:58 PM

> The first time I saw Michelangelo’s David in person, I wept. Never in my life have I witnessed a more beautiful piece of content.

I stopped reading at this sentence and couldn't take the rest of the article seriously. It felt .... pretentious and self centered.

by zuzululu

7/21/2026 at 3:41:04 PM

FWIW, I love the poetic way Pusha T of the Clipse addressed this in POV

"They content create, I despise that; I create content, then they tries that.."

by jrm4

7/20/2026 at 5:30:23 PM

Ironic that this piece is mostly discontent.

by m0llusk

7/21/2026 at 3:56:03 PM

[flagged]

by Iris595

7/20/2026 at 7:56:23 PM

[dead]

by pentagrama

7/21/2026 at 8:44:54 PM

[flagged]

by rekpero

7/20/2026 at 5:50:09 PM

> She said, “Oh, yeah, he always sends me great leads.” I think she meant it as a compliment, but she might as well have said, “Oh, yeah, he’s so good at spotting gullible marks.”

That’s not what it means. It means that the vendor and you are a good fit for each other. The hard part in almost all these things is that two parties would both benefit if they had common knowledge but they don’t have common knowledge. The guy who puts the two together is useful. That’s who you describe as “sending great leads”.

It’s not clear to me why this style of manufactured grievance writing is popular. The world is full of Pareto wins.

by arjie

7/20/2026 at 6:13:20 PM

OP here. Thanks for reading!

I'm having trouble understanding where we disagree. It seems like you're arguing that she's correct because it was helpful for the mutual acquaintance to refer me to this vendor, which I agree it is.

My point is that the term "lead" implies that she's thinking about making the sale rather than serving me as her client. Do we disagree about the connotation of the word "lead?"

As a more extreme example, if you went to a doctor for an illness and they said, "Wow, I'm going to make so much money treating you," I imagine you'd find it off-putting even if the doctor would only earn the money because they're doing a useful thing by treating your illness.

by mtlynch

7/20/2026 at 6:35:41 PM

Is your sentence supposed to be analogous? The difference between a great lead and a bad lead in that context would be sending a patient with a skin lesion to a dermatologist (great lead - “someone who will be happy with what I can do”) vs sending a patient with a brain tumor to a dermatologist (bad lead - “I can’t help this person”). In this context, a “great lead” is someone who has been appropriately prequalified so that both participants are going to benefit from the interaction.

Naturally the grievance writing style pre-supposes extractive malice “oh the dermatologist is happy because they’re going to make money off me” rather than the more mundane “oh the dermatologist is happy because they don’t have to spend this time telling me they can’t help me”.

In any case, far be it from me to tell you not to do this. As a content creator, you have certainly found writer-audience fit. It baffles me why, but this style is certainly popular on this website.

by arjie

7/20/2026 at 6:55:49 PM

I think we disagree on the connotation of the word "lead."

To me, if someone describes me as a "lead," it implies that they are focused on making the sale rather than on anything else about the business relationship. I would also find it unsettling if a doctor told me that I was a "good lead" because I had a disease they treat.

by mtlynch

7/20/2026 at 7:06:15 PM

Jargon is field-specific. In medicine you’d be a good referral (“I’m glad they sent you to me”) or an interesting case. The field does not use “lead” for that in the way that contemporary sales does. Discordant terminology is reasonable to be wary of.

Consider for the moment the two cases of an agent for a player or actor and a doctor. It’s normal for an agent to discuss commission and for a doctor to not, though both will make money off you participating. If you had an agent who said he’s just trying to get you the best deal and “don’t worry about money” that would also trigger red flags as much as a doctor discussing commission rates for referrals.

That doesn’t mean commissions are worse than undiscussed rates. Just that norm-violators are risky deal participants.

Given this discussion, I suspect the best interpretation of your post is not that it is grievance text. It is that unfamiliarity with the terminology of a field has resulted in transferring connotations from unrelated contexts.

To lighten the tone, I am reminded of a HN comment where someone said that “Khan Academy” was a terrible name because it naturally brings to mind a “con man”. Of course, this must have been natural because the two words are homophones in his accent (they are not so in mine). An example of connotation mistaken.

by arjie

7/21/2026 at 2:14:37 PM

We should think about doctors that way. They are in business. Or if they aren't, they are employees of a business. The medical field is full of terminology and customs to disguise this.

by SoftTalker