4 ms·

This is probably related to this [1] if anyone is wondering. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527950

by andy12_ 9mo ago

XCSme 9mo ago
Most likely, as Adam directly "credited" their revenue issues to AI (which makes sense, tailwind was making money by selling pre-made components, but now the AI can generate those for you).
- jrjeksjd8d 9mo ago
  The AI issue was that their docs advertise their paid offerings. When AI plagiarizes the docs it doesn't include the ads.
  - number6 9mo ago
    And since AI knows every Tailwind page, you probably do not need the paid offer for a decent looking page. Well you always could just read the docs instead of using the paid offer. Took longer. Not anymore.
  - testdelacc1 9mo ago
    It’s both.
  - DoesntMatter22 9mo ago
    When you say plagiarizes, do you mean they are publishing their own docs without ads? Or you mean when the AI is reading the docs instead of a person they ignore the ads?
    - Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
      I think its the latter.
    - jrjeksjd8d 9mo ago
      People don't just ask AI to produce a Tailwind app, they also ask AI specific questions that are answered in the docs. When the AI regurgitates the answers from the docs they don't visit the actual docs. Like the Google answer box in search results stealing clicks from the pages that produce the content.
      - DoesntMatter22 9mo ago
        This would also be true if someone wrote a book about Tailwind. Are they “stealing” clicks the too?
        jrjeksjd8d 9mo ago
        The answer is "it depends". If someone printed out the documentation and bound it together to sell without permission? Yes. The mere act of converting from one medium to another usually isn't transformative. The test for writing a book is whether the author applied their own judgement in the creation of the book. Even if some explanations of concepts are inevitably similar the structure of the book, the example code, etc. will reflect the author's judgement and experience. An LLM is incapable of authorial intent. It's not synthesizing the docs with a career of experience and the input of an editor. It's playing madlibs with the work of one or more prior authors.
  - knallfrosch 9mo ago
    It was a problem with their revenue stream, which was documentation website -> banner for lifetime payment. All customers already had lifetime access and couldn't pay more. Plus noone was reading the docs on the webpage anymore. Recurring subscriptions, ads in AI products (think Tailwind MCP server telling you about subscription features.) Those were just two things I pulled out of the hat in a minute.
    - jrjeksjd8d 9mo ago
      I can understand recurring subscriptions and ads in MCP being a bright line that the team doesn't want to cross. You will probably say it's a bad business model to not make everything a recurring charge and packed full of ads. I've experienced this in my own life - I ran my own business and I had to choose between doing a worse job and enshittifying the product to make more money, or doing a good job but risking bankruptcy. I choose bankruptcy, because I believed strongly in doing a good job and not enshittifying the product. I don't regret it.
- josecodea 9mo ago
  In which case one has to wonder if we need tailwind at all anymore. To me, years ago, tailwind was a great sell as a tool to work faster by typing less. The tradeoff is that the "inline styles" look awful and become a mess real quickly when too many of them are placed together (so and so has precedence or whatever, a media query for each single property, constantly translating between CSS and tailwind equivalent, etc). Now? Well, AI solves the entire issue of time taken typing. Classnames always looked cleaner too. Additionally CSS doesn't lag behind Browser features and comes with the full power of the language. Why bother with Tailwind anymore whatsoever? They were extremely lucky that AI picked up tailwind to keep it relevant, they should be keeping up with the times if they want to stay relevant. Instead their actions are those of someone that is cowering in fear, making sure that they can put the last of the revenue into the coffer. (reject PR because they don't want AI to do better with tailwind while firing engineers, not to mention the big tantrum). Lets go back to actual CSS, it is easier to read anyway, it's now a modern tool with variables and all that, there's no longer a need to dumb it down. Besides, if I wanted to pay for pre-made components, I would go with DaisyUI which is agnostic to the frontend framework, unlike the paid components from tailwindLabs, which strictly require you use one of the javascript frameworks.

This is probably related to this [1] if anyone is wondering. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527950

by andy12_ 9mo ago

This is probably related to this [1] if anyone is wondering. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527950

XCSme 9mo ago

Most likely, as Adam directly "credited" their revenue issues to AI (which makes sense, tailwind was making money by selling pre-made components, but now the AI can generate those for you).

jrjeksjd8d 9mo ago
The AI issue was that their docs advertise their paid offerings. When AI plagiarizes the docs it doesn't include the ads.
- number6 9mo ago
  And since AI knows every Tailwind page, you probably do not need the paid offer for a decent looking page. Well you always could just read the docs instead of using the paid offer. Took longer. Not anymore.
- testdelacc1 9mo ago
  It’s both.
- DoesntMatter22 9mo ago
  When you say plagiarizes, do you mean they are publishing their own docs without ads? Or you mean when the AI is reading the docs instead of a person they ignore the ads?
  - Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
    I think its the latter.
  - jrjeksjd8d 9mo ago
    People don't just ask AI to produce a Tailwind app, they also ask AI specific questions that are answered in the docs. When the AI regurgitates the answers from the docs they don't visit the actual docs. Like the Google answer box in search results stealing clicks from the pages that produce the content.
    - DoesntMatter22 9mo ago
      This would also be true if someone wrote a book about Tailwind. Are they “stealing” clicks the too?
      - jrjeksjd8d 9mo ago
        The answer is "it depends". If someone printed out the documentation and bound it together to sell without permission? Yes. The mere act of converting from one medium to another usually isn't transformative. The test for writing a book is whether the author applied their own judgement in the creation of the book. Even if some explanations of concepts are inevitably similar the structure of the book, the example code, etc. will reflect the author's judgement and experience. An LLM is incapable of authorial intent. It's not synthesizing the docs with a career of experience and the input of an editor. It's playing madlibs with the work of one or more prior authors.
- knallfrosch 9mo ago
  It was a problem with their revenue stream, which was documentation website -> banner for lifetime payment. All customers already had lifetime access and couldn't pay more. Plus noone was reading the docs on the webpage anymore. Recurring subscriptions, ads in AI products (think Tailwind MCP server telling you about subscription features.) Those were just two things I pulled out of the hat in a minute.
  - jrjeksjd8d 9mo ago
    I can understand recurring subscriptions and ads in MCP being a bright line that the team doesn't want to cross. You will probably say it's a bad business model to not make everything a recurring charge and packed full of ads. I've experienced this in my own life - I ran my own business and I had to choose between doing a worse job and enshittifying the product to make more money, or doing a good job but risking bankruptcy. I choose bankruptcy, because I believed strongly in doing a good job and not enshittifying the product. I don't regret it.
josecodea 9mo ago
In which case one has to wonder if we need tailwind at all anymore. To me, years ago, tailwind was a great sell as a tool to work faster by typing less. The tradeoff is that the "inline styles" look awful and become a mess real quickly when too many of them are placed together (so and so has precedence or whatever, a media query for each single property, constantly translating between CSS and tailwind equivalent, etc). Now? Well, AI solves the entire issue of time taken typing. Classnames always looked cleaner too. Additionally CSS doesn't lag behind Browser features and comes with the full power of the language. Why bother with Tailwind anymore whatsoever? They were extremely lucky that AI picked up tailwind to keep it relevant, they should be keeping up with the times if they want to stay relevant. Instead their actions are those of someone that is cowering in fear, making sure that they can put the last of the revenue into the coffer. (reject PR because they don't want AI to do better with tailwind while firing engineers, not to mention the big tantrum). Lets go back to actual CSS, it is easier to read anyway, it's now a modern tool with variables and all that, there's no longer a need to dumb it down. Besides, if I wanted to pay for pre-made components, I would go with DaisyUI which is agnostic to the frontend framework, unlike the paid components from tailwindLabs, which strictly require you use one of the javascript frameworks.