The hard part flipped.

Two years ago: building was hard, distribution was easy.

Today: building is easy — one person + AI can ship what used to take a team. But distribution is brutally hard. Too much noise. Too many products. Attention is the scarce resource.

When building was the bottleneck, quality filtered naturally. Now anyone can ship in a weekend. The filter is gone.

We've moved from effort signals quality → reach signals quality.

So what's the new moat?

1. Trust — people who already believe in you
2. Taste — knowing what to build, not just how
3. Community — exactly why places like this exist

The weird implication: social capital you built before AI might now be worth more than the technical skills you're building with AI.

The hard part flipped.

Two years ago: building was hard, distribution was easy.

Today: building is easy (one person + AI can ship what used to take a team), but distribution is brutally hard. There’s too much noise, too many products, and attention is the scarce resource.

I keep thinking about what this actually means structurally. When building was the bottleneck, quality filtered naturally — only the dedicated shipped. Now that anyone can ship in a weekend, the filter is gone. We’ve moved from a world where effort signals quality to one where reach signals quality — and those two things are very different.

So what’s the new moat? I’d argue it’s:
1. Trust — people who already know and believe in you
2. Taste — knowing what to build, not just how
3. Community — exactly why places like this exist

The weird implication: the social capital you built before AI became a superpower might now be worth more than the technical skills you’re building with AI.