saved
Software is now user-generated content
gist
Valentine Watkins argues that vibe coding knocked computer code off the top of his old Content Value Spectrum into user-generated content. An App Store chart of exploding AI-driven submissions with flat human adoption is not a distribution-moat story; old launch channels fail because the category is now infinite software, and the missing layer is discovery. Aggregation Theory implies new platforms will host and feed vibe-coded widgets. Consumption will stick, if at all, through games and work that moves people, not toilet-scroll feeds of Tailwind slop.
ideas
- Code fell into UGC. Watkins's pre-COVID Content Value Spectrum put computer code at the high-value end; vibe coding and agents have dropped it next to comments and chum.
- Adoption is a category problem, not a moat. Exploding App Store submissions with no users is not Lenny and Levelsio's distribution story; old launch channels cannot carry infinite software.
- Discovery platforms will aggregate it. Abundance plus Aggregation Theory points to new hosts for posting, sharing, and feeding vibe-coded widgets, from Meta Pocket and Raycast Glaze to Lovable.
- Consumption needs emotion, not a toilet feed. Games and work that moves people are the consumer "why"; Watkins is not yet convinced a mini-app Instagram beats existing entertainment.
- Creation is solved; consumption is not. Frontier labs finished the making side. The open contest is who becomes the aggregator, and it probably will not look like Product Hunt plus TikTok.
quotes
“They’re now slumming it with the user-generated content parts of the spectrum.”
“So more than distribution, it’s discovery, stupid.”
“That means infinite software: a lot of it good, most of it meh, and some amount that will change the world, for better or worse.”
“We’ve got the creation part done thanks to the frontier AI labs, now let’s bring on the consumption part.”