agreed on the uptick in generative AI for music but I think it will just start to replace regular music on the major streamers rather than crop up in a new beskpoke platform. it's already happening: https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin...
I'm starting to think that being a Wordpress web dev is the ticket.
When I first started in the industry about 6-7 years ago, Wordpress seemed like a total dinosaur. Every instance I worked on was an absolute nightmare -- users installing add-ons that modify the db, introduce security vulnerabilities, etc. I thought WP devs seemed like old fogies -- why would you choose this old, outdated software when you could write beautiful React components and use SSR to deploy your entire blog as a static site?
Well, it turns out that just keeping the dependencies of the fancy React site up-to-date is a full-time job. I have static React sites I made 3-4 years ago that no longer work because they're running a build script on node 10, which Netlify no longer supports.
There's more! clients know Wordpress and are comfortable with it. I've tried every headless CMS under the sun and it pains me to admit that Wordpress's editor interface is better than all of them.
The plugin ecosystem is gigantic. Most likely any feature request a client has can be accomplished by just installing a plugin, if you're feeling lazy.
Will you get paid top dollar by engineering standards? No.
Will you implement beautiful innovative designs? No.
Will you get to use the flavor-of-the-month new hotness JS tooling? No.
Will you get to write elegant functional code? No.
Will your site have a perfect Lighthouse score? No.
Will your client install idiotic add-ons that pollute the database? Probably.
So there's plenty of downsides. The upside is that you can build out the initial site and then literally set it and forget it.
Sure maybe websites are dying but you wouldn't believe how many people out there still need a basic marketing site for their portfolio, small business, nonprofit, whatever. These type of clients are also not particularly tech-savvy (they could probably just do Squarespace on their own if they were), so you have lots of leverage with your schedule and tech choices. If you give them a good deal and treat them well they'll probably stay with you forever.
Once you're tapped into a network of clients and/or have a couple of bigger clients on retainer, you're on autopilot. If you spend a bit of time developing a custom WP theme and a Dockerized hosting solution that makes your setup easy to repeat, your LOE for the initial build-out will be even lower.
I'm still working with the "flavor of the month new JS hotness" but I'm burning out on it and like OP, feel completely disillusioned with the industry post-COvid. I think the tech world would probably be a better place if more people admitted they were just in it for the money and didn't try to convince themselves they're actually saving the world. Good luck to OP and anybody else trying to claw back their personal time.
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