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".

"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.

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".

> malleable goo

I see you read https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2025/07/06/content-creator/

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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".

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.