The reader’s choice topic month came and went. Thank you to all who voted. It wasn’t like there were thousands of you, but it was enough to help me break through a “what the hell do I post” deadlock. Onwards and upwards.
This week, I wanted to armchair a little on the world we live in and spot the best places to deploy AI. Where are the “aipportunities,” shall we say.
There are two ways to go about this.
The first way is to look for blue oceans and greenfield opportunities. Where are the new categories springing up, and where are there places for things to exist where they never existed before?
This is your agentic workflows, your vibe-coding tools, and your openclaw instances hard at work.
You can GPT up your Chat if you need to know more, or attend a meetup.
The other really good way is to find someone who has set themselves as an anti-ai platform and is viciously spending time and money defending their moat.
There are three obvious leaders here I want to talk about.
The first is LinkedIn.
The second is (shocked Pikachu face) the games industry.
The third is Upwork.
Let’s talk about these, shall we?
LinkedIn has set itself up to be a laughingstock as a platform. If you have not seen one of my “It is Day NNN” posts, you should creep me over there. You might recognize what I am posting about because it is infested with horrible noise.
The noise is largely because the platform has done its best to keep collaboration with AI to a near minimum, and I have heard horror stories about people being banned from LinkedIn for experimenting with API tools.
Considering they are owned by Microsoft, and seeing literally every misstep possible being made by Microsoft, this is just another leadership category error in the making.
After LinkedIn, there is “the whole games industry.” Games has 100% always been at the forefront of every technological wave of innovation. Except for LLM technology. It is borderline lunacy how toxic LLM technology and LLM developers are treated in games. I am on the receiving end of this myself, and I have not even shipped an LLM game yet. I get people sneering at me, making horrible comparisons in passive-aggressive vaguebooking posts, and flat out being blocked for being enthusiastic about the incoming change in tools that we will be experiencing. I do my fair share of trying to help people agree to be open to new tools and processes using LLM tools, but I have stopped being kind after a first-degree connection literally was gaslighting me and attempting to patronize me into accepting that his toxic treatment of my opinions was normal and that somehow I am more stupider for not understanding why I am so horribly bad.
I am going to painfully wait for the tantrums and thumbsucking on this front ride itself out. There is no other real alternative. I am not going to attempt gentle Socratic conversation anymore; I am just going to point out they are throwing tantrums and point out that “The Big Beige Book of 2028 Employability” will require people who can spell LLM. I describe it as painful because any time I try to offer a constructive path forward for people, they smack it down like a toddler breaking a plate full of delicious vegetables. Then they scream in my face, “NO LIKEY!”
At some point, like every other technology wave before this one, someone is going to ship a hit game, and then ten other companies are going to knock it off. Then AI Native games will have a proper genre, and we can all go back to normal.
That brings us to Upwork and its ilk. Much like LinkedIn, here is a protectionist ratings racket for work. They have APIs that they apparently hoard zealously in a pathetic attempt to extend their moat for pushing developers into low-leverage roles, where customers can threaten them for discounts due to one-sided reputation management. “Give me an extra milestone’s worth of work or you get one star,” is a motivator for someone who is already struggling to make ends meet. That lack of reputation will make it harder for you to command your existing clientele or wages.
I have more on how Upwork will eventually perish in the darkness where it thrives, but there will trustable transparent platforms leveraging LLM technology to make better developer pairings with projects, and also whole new ways to do this business without having it be a complete race to the bottom that commoditizes hard-working creative people. You might have to wait until mid 2027 to hear more of this. For now, I will keep it secret, I will keep it safe.
So here are three places you can make a tectonic impact against competitors playing “scared ostrich” for their strategy. Pick one of these, or find something that has a similar set of wrong-thinking leadership forcing people into business relationships or using scarcity tactics.
There are many others out there. If you pick one, figure out a transparent model, and figure out how to create value and joy for people through the wonder of next generation LLM tools, you might be able to take over a shameful protectionist who is huddling under their desk day drinking wishing all of these new developments would stop so they could just croon lovingly with their fax machine and their horse and buggy like the good old days.
Until then, bad man Darth Szeder will go away for a little bit so you can put on some Kenny G, take out the tub of ice cream from the freezer, and make some chamomile tea, or whatever it is you need to do after you absorb his mean old words.
I will undoubtedly be back for more of this next week.
Maybe with an Amazon Affiliate Link. You know, because apparently I want to push more money at mister Bezos, since I am already not a bad enough mans.
