4 ms·

Posting a product on any of these sites will not have the same impact as it did before AI. Not because your product is not good, but because there is much more

by Oras 7mo ago

Posting a product on any of these sites will not have the same impact as it did before AI. Not because your product is not good, but because there is much more noise now. This applies to social media posting, SEO, articles, you name it. AI has amplified the noise to the point where finding something useful is pretty hard now. Building in public is and was always a fake trend. You see a few who made it a long time ago by posting their journey (personal choice), and then everyone jumps in to spam, which is back again to the noise, ending with a lack of value. I feel for anyone trying to take a product to the market right now, while there are more tools to build, marketing has gotten a lot harder, consumers are struggling financially, and companies are trying to stay afloat due to a lack of growth.

thorio 7mo ago
True story, yesterday I tried to get some feedback from an industry relevant subreddit for a real estate quick check calculation tool (automatically extracts listing data into calculation and enables sharing investment ideas). The pure mention of AI brought up a whole crowd of fed up bullies that talked it down as vibecoding trash - which it really isn't. All those places are flooded.
- owebmaster 7mo ago
  Yes but your content is also part of the flood
  - thorio 7mo ago
    While that's true, my tool (as part of the flood) didn't originate from the same spring, it's just something I happen to be building that same way, I did before the LLM wave. It's not vibecoded SaaS fast food. I checked community guidelines before and think regarding Reddit, this is where it should be resolve in my option.
    - mchaver 7mo ago
      Unfortunately the source doesn't matter when there so much. It is really hard to differentiate things when you are inundated. Did you try a Show HN here? It requires more luck than ever because of the same problem, but worth a try. I'll take an honest look if you do it (though hard to say if I am the target market).
- deaux 7mo ago
  People, not bullies. I can sympathize with you because I've struggled with the same, but we can't blame those people. They're now being asked every two days to give feedback on yet another tool. That used to be once every 6 months. And the overwhelming majority of those new "tools" is abandoned within a month. And there is indeed a huge amount of vibecoded slop. I've put more time and thought into our product than the last 20 such tools that got posted into our industry-relevant subreddit combined, but I can't expect the mods and users to put their time into assessing that.
  - thorio 7mo ago
    While this is directionally correct it does come down to a tonality, that I think wasn't justified in that case. But hey, it's the Internet and I'm not naive either.
    - deaux 7mo ago
      I'm saying that the tonality is justified due to all of the other slop. You and me are simply the unavoidable casualties. I'm saying this while in a field that's even more anti-AI/tools than yours, FWIW. By virtue of anything that mentions AI - and much of the tools that don't even mention it but are suspected - getting auto-removed by automod on the subreddit. There's only one subreddit in our field, everyone's on it, and it blanket bans anything with AI, despite the best tools out there incoporating it. It's not even something like art, design, coding and so on where people are scared of job loss or even hobby loss, it's nothing like that at all for the community. I do suspect the mods' friends might feel threatened, as they _do_ make a living off of the community, but in our case I don't even think that's their primary reason to blanket ban it.
  - mnky9800n 7mo ago
    I think it’s strange to dislike vibe coded things. I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff that’s mostly vibe coded. fomo.nyc for example. The problem is mostly the intention. I think a lot of vibe coded stuff isn’t solving a problem someone has its someone trying to seek profit. It’s no different from when smartphones first came out and people wanted to make a for everything when most of them didn’t solve any problems. The difference is nobody is wowed anymore by anything so your app that turns your phone into a beer kind of thing doesn’t exist in the vibe coded world.
- Andrei_dev 7mo ago
  Had basically the same thing happen. Posted in a side project sub, spam filter nuked it because new account. And in other subs now, anything that mentions AI gets hit with "vibecoded slop" automatically. Doesn't matter if you spent months on it. What actually moved the needle was talking about data, not the product. I posted about my tool — crickets. Then I wrote about stuff I discovered while building it and people started engaging. Exact same product behind both posts, just "here's what I found" instead of "here's what I built." Night and day difference.
ivm 7mo ago
It did not work even before AI. The rise of "indie hacking" in the late 2010s brought in thousands of hustlers creating similar lists, and many of them were simply selling shovels to other indie hackers (including the lists themselves). By the time of the pandemic, the "submit to every directory & community" strategy was already useless.
baby 7mo ago
The producthunt noise was a thing on day 1 I feel like, I quickly stopped checking that website after they launched
nvardakas 7mo ago
[dead]
- frabia 7mo ago
  Can you share what approach you’re taking for this? I’ve tried engaging in a similar way but struggled to strike a balance between helping for the sake of helping (no return for me), and asking research-focused questions, with people not caring too much about to answer
  - nvardakas 7mo ago
    [dead]
hermitcrab 7mo ago
I've been creating and marketing software as an indie developer for over 20 years now, and the marketing part definitely feels harder than it use to. See also: https://successfulsoftware.net/2025/12/22/is-the-golden-age-of-indie-software-over/ https://successfulsoftware.net/2025/12/22/is-the-golden-age-...
Sohazur 7mo ago
[flagged]
- arkadiytehgraet 7mo ago
  Please do not post AI slop here.
  - edot 7mo ago
    It’s also against the rules now too. I wish there were a report button.
    - probably_wrong 7mo ago
      Isn't that what the "flag" option is for?
      - dominotw 7mo ago
        kind of hidden. they should make it more prominent now .
  - dennisy 7mo ago
    How did you guess it was AI slop? I read it and answered before seeing your comment :)
    - yks 7mo ago
      X is not Y — it’s Z. Because: - A: … - B: …
- baubino 7mo ago
  AIs recommend what is most popular/well-known, which isn’t necessarily what is best. Both your description of AI sourcing and your AI-written comment demonstrate this point.
- dennisy 7mo ago
iovrthoughtthis 7mo ago
the law of shitty click-throughs strikes again

by Oras 7mo ago

thorio 7mo ago

True story, yesterday I tried to get some feedback from an industry relevant subreddit for a real estate quick check calculation tool (automatically extracts listing data into calculation and enables sharing investment ideas). The pure mention of AI brought up a whole crowd of fed up bullies that talked it down as vibecoding trash - which it really isn't. All those places are flooded.

owebmaster 7mo ago
Yes but your content is also part of the flood
- thorio 7mo ago
  While that's true, my tool (as part of the flood) didn't originate from the same spring, it's just something I happen to be building that same way, I did before the LLM wave. It's not vibecoded SaaS fast food. I checked community guidelines before and think regarding Reddit, this is where it should be resolve in my option.
  - mchaver 7mo ago
    Unfortunately the source doesn't matter when there so much. It is really hard to differentiate things when you are inundated. Did you try a Show HN here? It requires more luck than ever because of the same problem, but worth a try. I'll take an honest look if you do it (though hard to say if I am the target market).
deaux 7mo ago
People, not bullies. I can sympathize with you because I've struggled with the same, but we can't blame those people. They're now being asked every two days to give feedback on yet another tool. That used to be once every 6 months. And the overwhelming majority of those new "tools" is abandoned within a month. And there is indeed a huge amount of vibecoded slop. I've put more time and thought into our product than the last 20 such tools that got posted into our industry-relevant subreddit combined, but I can't expect the mods and users to put their time into assessing that.
- thorio 7mo ago
  While this is directionally correct it does come down to a tonality, that I think wasn't justified in that case. But hey, it's the Internet and I'm not naive either.
  - deaux 7mo ago
    I'm saying that the tonality is justified due to all of the other slop. You and me are simply the unavoidable casualties. I'm saying this while in a field that's even more anti-AI/tools than yours, FWIW. By virtue of anything that mentions AI - and much of the tools that don't even mention it but are suspected - getting auto-removed by automod on the subreddit. There's only one subreddit in our field, everyone's on it, and it blanket bans anything with AI, despite the best tools out there incoporating it. It's not even something like art, design, coding and so on where people are scared of job loss or even hobby loss, it's nothing like that at all for the community. I do suspect the mods' friends might feel threatened, as they _do_ make a living off of the community, but in our case I don't even think that's their primary reason to blanket ban it.
- mnky9800n 7mo ago
  I think it’s strange to dislike vibe coded things. I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff that’s mostly vibe coded. fomo.nyc for example. The problem is mostly the intention. I think a lot of vibe coded stuff isn’t solving a problem someone has its someone trying to seek profit. It’s no different from when smartphones first came out and people wanted to make a for everything when most of them didn’t solve any problems. The difference is nobody is wowed anymore by anything so your app that turns your phone into a beer kind of thing doesn’t exist in the vibe coded world.
Andrei_dev 7mo ago
Had basically the same thing happen. Posted in a side project sub, spam filter nuked it because new account. And in other subs now, anything that mentions AI gets hit with "vibecoded slop" automatically. Doesn't matter if you spent months on it. What actually moved the needle was talking about data, not the product. I posted about my tool — crickets. Then I wrote about stuff I discovered while building it and people started engaging. Exact same product behind both posts, just "here's what I found" instead of "here's what I built." Night and day difference.

ivm 7mo ago

It did not work even before AI. The rise of "indie hacking" in the late 2010s brought in thousands of hustlers creating similar lists, and many of them were simply selling shovels to other indie hackers (including the lists themselves). By the time of the pandemic, the "submit to every directory & community" strategy was already useless.

baby 7mo ago

The producthunt noise was a thing on day 1 I feel like, I quickly stopped checking that website after they launched

nvardakas 7mo ago

[dead]

frabia 7mo ago
Can you share what approach you’re taking for this? I’ve tried engaging in a similar way but struggled to strike a balance between helping for the sake of helping (no return for me), and asking research-focused questions, with people not caring too much about to answer
- nvardakas 7mo ago
  [dead]

hermitcrab 7mo ago

I've been creating and marketing software as an indie developer for over 20 years now, and the marketing part definitely feels harder than it use to. See also: https://successfulsoftware.net/2025/12/22/is-the-golden-age-of-indie-software-over/ https://successfulsoftware.net/2025/12/22/is-the-golden-age-...

Sohazur 7mo ago

[flagged]

arkadiytehgraet 7mo ago
Please do not post AI slop here.
- edot 7mo ago
  It’s also against the rules now too. I wish there were a report button.
  - probably_wrong 7mo ago
    Isn't that what the "flag" option is for?
    - dominotw 7mo ago
      kind of hidden. they should make it more prominent now .
- dennisy 7mo ago
  How did you guess it was AI slop? I read it and answered before seeing your comment :)
  - yks 7mo ago
    X is not Y — it’s Z. Because: - A: … - B: …
baubino 7mo ago
AIs recommend what is most popular/well-known, which isn’t necessarily what is best. Both your description of AI sourcing and your AI-written comment demonstrate this point.
dennisy 7mo ago

iovrthoughtthis 7mo ago

the law of shitty click-throughs strikes again