Source: Anish@a16z
Fifteen years ago, if you asked, "What do smart people do on weekends?" a great answer would be, "Make YouTube videos."
YouTube celebrated its 20th anniversary earlier this year. While we all love reminiscing about those early videos that made us laugh, we don't always realize how countercultured it was to become a YouTuber in its early days. Even after the YouTube Partner Program launched in 2007, the idea of making money from a channel seemed unattainable for a time. With so much video content already available in the world, from large studios to the long tail of content on the 110th channel in a cable TV package: how could there possibly be more commercial demand?
Looking back now, we realize that the world 15 years ago was essentially the world of short videos. And we know this because of the evolution of YouTube since then. When anyone with a camera and editing tools could find their audience, we discovered a vast array of channels and businesses—from Hot Ones to Mr Beast to Dwarkesh—clearly deserving a prominent place in our content world. The so-called "long tail" is far larger than anyone imagined.
Perhaps this is the right historical guideline for thinking about the future of Large Language Models (LLMs), web applications, and the internet. YouTube revolutionized content by simplifying "creatively producing content" and "running a small business" into a series of easy steps. You still need creativity and motivation, but the rest becomes much simpler. So why shouldn't we see the same thing happen with software?
The internet has always excelled at facilitating permissionless creation for anyone. But it wasn't until the advent of the Large Model (LLM) that the definition of "anyone" shifted from "developer" to "anyone with an idea and access to a code-based intelligent agent." Five years from now, we might look back and realize that the world lacked software (short software) because the only people capable of building software were engineers. In other words, for the rest of the internet, this was the YouTube moment:
- The argument that "the world lacks software" is equivalent to "the world lacks content" in 2006. In 2006, you would point to 100 cable TV channels and say, "That's enough." Today, software and websites face the same dilemma.
- Large Language Models (LLMs) have finally made it possible to develop niche software and applications that were previously impossible to market. You wouldn't hire a team of engineers to develop a product for 100 people, but you can use application generation and programming tools to develop (and monetize!) smaller products.
- Long-tail web applications will be built by a specific type of "professional," and YouTubers are the best template for such professionals we have.
Content is now an application; the application is now content.
Paul Bakaus points out that when people talk about the internet, they are actually talking about three different things: the content layer of the internet, including websites like blogs, YouTube, Substack, and traditional publishers; the business layer of the internet, including marketplaces like Amazon and Shopify; and the application layer of the internet, which for most of the internet's history has consisted of "serious" cloud-based software, such as enterprise platforms and social networks.
Large Language Models (LLMs) are impacting all these aspects in different ways. The business aspects are the subject of another article, but we do see LLMs playing a significant role in product recommendation and purchasing; this is evident not only in new AI discovery mechanisms like search, but more importantly in recommendation engines themselves. But putting business aside, our understanding of "content" on the internet and how it's rewarded is undergoing a major transformation.
Content has always been the "long tail" of internet engagement, dating back 30 years, from the birth of the first web browsers to the present day. Every decade, a major story emerges revolving around the long tail of content being controlled by a centralized force: first AOL, then Facebook.
This time, the biggest takeaway is that LLM crawling sites represent a new, and perhaps even worse, form of content capture—because they've essentially become an application that lets you consume information that was supposed to drive traffic to content creators in the past. Publishers are despairing over a phenomenon known as "Google Zero" (the day organic search traffic approaches zero), and some interesting new forces are fighting back, such as Cloudflare's foray into pay-per-view crawling and new micropayment standards like x402.
Meanwhile, something interesting is happening on the other end of the internet: apps are becoming the new content .
In the long run, the internet will become more participatory.
There are some software categories that have never been developed for simple reasons: insufficient return on investment, excessive cost, or because the preferences of roughly 20 million developers dictate the software we all use. But we'll soon find out exactly what they are.
Now, with new app building tools like Replit, v0, Loveable, Figma Make, Bolt, and Base44, you can easily create prototypes, build, and release brand-new apps. Previously, this required engineering expertise, and could even have required an entire development team. Now, all you need is $200 per month (or even less!) and a good idea.
There's a famous joke that most Gen Zers aspire to be professional YouTubers or TikTokers when they grow up. People love to debate and criticize whether this is a realistic goal, but they overlook a more fundamental observation: kids dream of starting businesses on the front lines of the internet and achieving the American Dream. And to date, the main channels for realizing this dream are YouTube and TikTok.
LLM offers a completely new perspective for creative professionals on the internet. If you're passionate about building your app ideas and turning them into reality, now you can. In the previous internet era, you needed to invest huge upfront costs, which were prohibitively expensive to realize an idea, and you needed to constantly grow your customer base to prove your existence. With LLM, you can easily launch your product and quickly acquire paying users.
For a concrete example: My wife has recently become fascinated with manifestation (a practice based on mindfulness and a positive mindset). She's incredibly good at it (so much so that I'm now extra careful not to upset her). She's now developing an online application for her friends to learn manifestation. A few years ago, she might have advertised the service on Facebook, trying to make the content engaging and dynamic. Now, she can develop an app to connect directly with clients.
I'm sure this isn't just happening in my home: I've seen all sorts of applications, from traffic control streaming websites in Brazil's welfare vacuum to AI band improvisation platforms built with Replit. Replit's power is evident: earlier this year, Replit's ARR reached $150 million, and demand for its coding agent products is skyrocketing.
We also expect to see this phenomenon extend beyond the web. Companies like Wabi are making it easier to build entirely new personal mobile applications that include features like weightlifting, clipart generation, fasting, and reminders to touch the grass.
App creation: A new type of entertainment industry
A few years ago, Nadia Asparouhova collaborated with Stripe Press to publish a wonderful book called *Open Work*. This book tells a fascinating story about how open-source software development has changed in the GitHub era: maintainers of popular projects have to spend a significant amount of time managing fans who want to participate and contribute. Open creation has begun to become a kind of "performance." Simply doing good deeds isn't enough—you have to think like a broadcaster.
Today, with the long tail effect of Vibe Coding applications and software, we may see similar things happening on a larger scale. The challenges may differ, but the required skill set may be the same: those who succeed will be a certain type of professional. Completely different from previous "professional" software developers, they will have a different intuition about the medium and how to build something that resonates.
It's worth humbly remembering that almost no veterans of traditional television have become major stars on YouTube. Mainstream television programming (such as late-night comedies) has long viewed YouTube as a dumping ground for "extra content," such as bonus features or deleted scenes. Traditional software developers and investors could very well end up misunderstanding vibe coding applications in the same way—not entirely dismissing them, but rather ignoring their purpose.
As we've seen on YouTube, the most successful new apps are often driven by individuals and personalities: these people have existing distribution channels, have created natural Schelling points for their communities, and they produce "unboxing videos, but it's software." But platforms like Wabi also point to another possible outcome. We might see hyper-personalized apps targeting even smaller, more niche audiences online. This liberates people immensely: software no longer needs to be practical. It doesn't need billions of dollars in revenue to justify its existence. It only needs a good idea behind it, and a few people with the professional intuition to understand its value and appreciate the success it requires (like professional YouTubers).
