Vibe coding a prototype in two nights, and nobody uses it next week: on fake demand
sujingshen · x · 2026-09-07
The author recounts building a personal information-source management product and lands on AI's most seductive trap: a pain point that's logically sound, nodded at by users, and prototypable via vibe coding in two nights—yet nobody uses it the second week, because the demand was fake from the start.
Key arguments:
- "Building your information diet" splits into pipes (RSS, newsletters, Twitter lists—productizable) and processing (filtering, verification, taste calibration—the hard part). Tools can connect sources but can't tell you whether someone is still worth listening to this year.
- Installing an app has a market; acting as your own editor doesn't.
- RSS was the protocol-level correct answer to personal information sovereignty and still lost—to platforms optimizing attention, users preferring to be fed, and the instant drift from "I choose" to "decide for me."
Structural contradiction: those who need such a system can't maintain it; those who can, don't need a product. The payable middle is too narrow for a consumer product. The same idea resurfaces every few years—RSS, knowledge management, second brains, AI intel systems—same bottleneck, new skin.
On X, this content never spreads: the platform rewards tribes, enemies, identity, and dopamine, none of which "maintain your own sources" provides.
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