The hard part was the customer and technical support. Huge time and energy sink fielding those requests - some totally lucid and well written, some incomprehensible, some just kinda sketchy obviously looking to manipulate/exploit/whatever you, some from people using phones and software versions you've never heard of, some from people using a totally different app than yours, some who think you are Google/apple/Microsoft and please reset their password to hunter2 etc etc etc. Then you have the endless API churn and mandates from the app stores etc about what you can and can't do, what SDK needs updating for whatever, new requirements, new deprecations etc etc etc.

It was maybe 10% coding and building something, with the other 90% just dealing with "customer service" bullshit that gained you basically nothing (and certainly not making you any revenue).

I made some small time hobby money, but obviously I pulled all the apps eventually and never looked back really. I would not recommend doing this to anyone if you have a stable job that pays reasonably well already. Keep the day job, it's less hassle.

Usage? Citations? Model families?

"Hey, we are not in a race to the bottom. This is our usual pricing, but this now is a promotion because we know we're coming from behind and need to entice users."

They're drawing a line in the sand on monetisation and signalling that to everyone, while in reality offering it a deep discount (no idea if profitable or not) knowing that this model will probably be obsolete before then.

This feels absurd to me (my gut is "I want the SMARTEST model I can get!!"), but often I find that my experience of using a flash/sonnet model for every-day workhorse coding they are better.

Its not the same thing, but when I think of that I am reminded of working with some engineers in the past who are incredibly smart and have PhDs (or to put it another way, over-qualified) and they were crap engineers because they'd just not be able to focus on the task and ONLY the task at hand and would get easily distracted by the "why" or "more interesting" things when I just asked them to fix a simple bug or whatever. Again, its not the same thing at all, but it certainly comes to mind when I think of this or experience a pro/opus model suggesting we make huge refactors when a tactical fix is all that is required etc.

Of course, the opus-sized models are great when it comes to huge comprehension/research/debugging efforts where the deeper reasoning is actually useful.

It sounds to me like the creators are creating and uploading the content, and then that is getting monetised on the platform?

The title makes it sound like meta is commissioning the content? I don't think that is the case here? Or is it?

Directly commissioning someone to create it is pretty wild.

I'm probably 8-10 years behind where I thought I would be in terms of promotions though (and the chunky pay rises that come with it) - I've basically been treading water since my wife was pregnant with the first kid because I had to say no to things at work so I could focus on family. I'm fortunate to have a very chill employer, but there have been many, many, many times where before children I'd simply have stayed late at the office to get something done or done a bit of work at the weekend or jumped on a plane somewhere with less than 24 hours notice or whatever. Instead things just have to wait to the morning or Monday, or I don't respond to messages any time of the day/weekend, or I am not there for that critical meeting with the stakeholders because its in Dallas or at 9pm UK or whatever.

I am only just starting to emerge tentatively from the other side of that now about 7 years later, and even then very very tentatively as I am basically 24/7 on-call for family emergencies that trump anything else.

Your wife and family won't believe you if you say it's impacted your career as the man or that it's hard to context switch - they'll laugh and dismiss your feelings as the narrative is that it is typically the mother who makes the sacrifices etc, but even if the mother is the stay at home parent there is still a major impact on the husband's career and work (or it has been for me anyway) but don't ever dare say that to a mother because they have a monopoly on that position.

I've got two young kids. I wouldn't say day to day expenses are particularly huge.

Sure you can go wild and buy them designer clothes/shoes they grow out of in 6 months, or you can fill every waking moment with white-knuckle entertainment and excitement and that all costs money. But you don't need to do that, the kids don't care what they wear so long as it's got a robot/unicorn/etc on it, and they're often very happy playing with a cardboard box, a small amount of generic Lego, and their imagination.

Food cost is almost a rounding error. Barely anything for an extra loaf of bread, an extra packet of cereal, some more chicken etc. peanuts.

The main cost - beyond needing to live in a larger house which I probably would have got anyway even without kids - is the opportunity cost of having kids: I've probably missed a promotion or two because I've had to say no to work travel, projects, late meetings with the US office etc to go kid related things. That and UK nursery costs are bigger than the mortgage, but again that is "optional" and only for the first few years.

Good luck

But hey let's all keep shitting on Google because their coding agent is slightly worse than SOTA.

I have been vaguely watching the Ukraine conflict over the past few years. From my distant and zero experience observations, it seems like missiles are extremely effective BUT also extremely limited. So you blow up that one building or SAM you targeted. Well done. What about the other 10,000 static targets? What about the guys with FPV drones and shoulder-launched anti-air now inside the rubble of the building you just destroyed? Send another XX-million USD missile to blow up the building you already blew up?

Feels like a determined adversary who is not easily cowed with a quick bit of "shock and awe" and armed with cheap, mobile winged/quad drones and man-portable guided anti-air/-tank missiles has totally changed the equation. Expensive limited missiles/planes/tanks/ships in smaller numbers seem kinda limited in their ability to get results in today's battlefield where there are FPV drones literally at every turn, and can be operated from literally a hole in the ground 15km away by people who aren't about to easily surrender.

It feels somewhat like the US doctrine has been to start with a "hit 'em hard" opening salvo of cruise/ballistic missiles and rockets etc and hope for immediate surrender. So far the lesson from Ukraine and Iran seems to be expect a big wave first attack or two and if you survive that initial push then suddenly the big super-power has no more cards left to play and it's down to men on the ground with hand-held weapons and drones. I wonder if people will look back at this era as a "WW1 moment" where the old ways of battle suddenly looked hopelessly out of date.

You may not be convicted for obstruction in the end but wow they will make things horrible for you right up until the court case is dropped at the last minute.

From that point on, every further interaction you have with any officer or official is another high-stakes situation for you where they will be looking to build up a case against you. Every word you say, every slip of the tongue in the interrogation room, the prison van, the holding cell at the station, your complaint at the cuffs being too tight, about needing to go to the bathroom, etc it's all being recorded and used by THEM to paint a picture of THEIR CHOOSING about YOU and build a case against YOU. They are actively trying to trip you up and get you to say/admit/confess to anything and they are professionals who are highly practiced at this and I assume - with respect - that you are not trained to withstand hostile interrogation and incarceration, even for short periods of time while they "straighten things out down at the station".

If you are in that situation I highly recommend you REFUSE to saying a single thing to anyone without legal representation (assuming that is even an option in the country where you decide to be a jerk) because they're out to get you for something, even if not the original thing they took you in for. Be extremely careful about what you say without legal representation.

Good luck on your next flight. Remember that there are different counties at both ends of an international flight and the laws are different in different countries - the laws you are used to at home don't apply elsewhere.

If someone jumps out at you in a dark alley and they have a weapon and they ask for your wallet, what are you going to do? Swallow your pride and give it to them, or willingly enter into a high-risk and highly-imbalanced scenario where you are at a huge disadvantage against the other person for who this is essentially zero-risk, something they do multiple times a day, and they have nothing to lose from it either way.

Sure it is legally wrong and you can stand up for your legal rights in that situation, but it's a high-risk strategy to take.

Is that particular moment, that exact moment in time, the right time to take a stand for the rule of law? Or perhaps there are other things you can do after the fact?

Up to you.

Someone stabbing you and leaving your corpse in an alley is obviously pretty bad, but getting on a no-fly list for life/prison time/beaten senseless in a backroom in some random airport in a country where you are a foreigner and don't know the language or law/etc because you wanted to prove some point to a border guard at some airport somewhere and were generally being a jerk is no joke either.