Chris Ferdinandi ⚓️
Y'all... I'm struggling.
Over 8 years or so, I grew a handful of tutorials around vanilla JS into a series of courses and workshops that actually brought in enough money to be a full time business for me.
Then last year, sales took a nose dive... 🧵 /1
Chris Ferdinandi ⚓️
But because I have ADHD, still don't really know what's caused this, and depend on my business to keep a house over my head and food on plates, I'm stuck in analysis paralysis mode.
I simply don't know what to do next.
Working in web dev has been such a massive blessing for me. It's where I feel at home. And watching my students thrive has been the most fulfilling thing I've done in my career.
This sucks.
/end
Aral Balkan
@cferdinandi Man, I was just telling Laura yesterday what an awesome job you’re doing. So sorry to hear this.
I hope one day the Small Web stuff will become sustainable as maybe we can do something together on the educational side of it together.
I wish I had something more useful to offer. The problem isn’t you but likely this AI bullshit that’s infecting dev. These things go in cycles but the fundamentals always remain. Hope you manage to ride it out.
Aral Balkan
@cferdinandi I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s also because so many folks aren’t web developers any longer but React devs or Vue devs or whatever.
And yes, I couldn’t imagine anything worse. Wanna learn code or wanna learn code while wading through bullshit and destroying the planet. Umm…
Chris Ferdinandi ⚓️
@aral Thanks Aral! I've had a shocking number of folks tell me "maybe you should teach folks how to use AI to learn code?"
That's antithetical to everything I believe. These tools are a scourge.
Aral Balkan
@cferdinandi @SamStrong The “problem” (in a capitalist) sense is that it’s growing in popularity with people, not corporations. And the folks who have the money/budgets are corporations. So, that’s fun.
Chris Ferdinandi ⚓️
@SamStrong @aral Funny thing is, I also see vanilla tech GROWING in popularity, which makes it all the more shocking to me. Everywhere I look, I see a renewed interest in vanilla CSS, and tools that send plain old HTML instead of the JS rendered stuff.
Sam Strong
@aral @cferdinandi What Aral just said about the fundamentals is where my brain went on reading this. Your emails continue to be a brilliant resource and your vanilla JS stuff is evergreen because *waves hands everywhere*.
I hope your educational stuff bounces back!
Ollie Boermans
@cferdinandi @aral perhaps a course on _fixing_ the crap AI generates. That gotta be a growth problem right?
I know the best way to build is simple first. However, most development lacks that luxury.
Chris Ferdinandi ⚓️
@ollicle @aral that’ll pay fruit in a few years. For now, I’m still in a bad place though.
Ollie Boermans
@cferdinandi @aral making people care ought not be this difficult 😞
Aral Balkan
@ollicle @cferdinandi Story of my life :)
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