# Backlog #5 - The dev bubble show This is the most honest backlog I have ever posted. Here you get honest answers to things people ask me and an authentic view of mine on the dev bubble. - URL: https://blog.lsantos.dev/en/backlog-5-the-dev-bubble-show/ - Published: 2025-01-09 - Updated: 2026-07-16 - Category: opinion - Tags: backlog-newsletter, opinion, career - Language: en - Author: Lucas Santos --- Today the first Backlog of 2025 begins, and let's start off the right way. This is going to be the most honest one I have ever written. I'm going to talk about several topics people always ask me about and, warning: **there will be no filter**, everything here is going to be authentic. The motivation came last night. This Backlog was going to be about something else (history related, that one is for next time), but before going to sleep, I made the biggest mistake: _I opened LinkedIn_. What I saw there left me with a mix of feelings I need to lay out here, since a lot of people ask me about it. So as not to cut the subject in half, let's go to the message from our friends at Remessa ❤️. And remember: everything here is **my opinion**. ## A bit of context Anyone who follows me knows that one of the things I hate the most is seeing posts from people passing themselves off as coaches, selling what they don't practice and creating shallow content just for likes and engagement (that one especially). From 2015 to 2020, the scene was calmer, but these figures always existed. I split this people into three categories: - **The Entrepreneur Guru:** Thinks they have all the answers and promises to "revolutionize humanity", but never delivers anything beyond colorful variations of products that already exist. - **The Stage Dev:** Talks about how to build the perfect application based on their two years of career at a garage startup with 10 customers. - **The Parrot Influencer:** Teaches, between one little dance and the next, that `parseInt` is the "best solution in JavaScript" ([it](https://x.com/_StaticVoid/status/1510709606569414663) [isn't](https://x.com/_StaticVoid/status/1488589887146274819)) without checking sources, proving that badly done basics go viral more than useful content. They all do the same thing, but in different ways. The coach sells you that "a rocket has no reverse gear", building "your product" at any cost. The stage dev exaggerates achievements to show off.[^n1] The cycle is simple: hype is created around a solution that promises to change the world, but in the end, the product either [doesn't exist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUju3faws4c&pp=ygUIdGhlcmFub3M%3D), or it [does exist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPOHf20slZg&pp=ygUJcmFiYml0IHIx) and [is](https://exame.com/inteligencia-artificial/por-que-o-rabbit-r1-se-tornou-o-produto-mais-mentiroso-de-2024/) [half](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddTV12hErTc&pp=ygUObWtiZCByYWJiaXQgcjE%3D) [finished](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TitZV6k8zfA&pp=ygUObWtiZCByYWJiaXQgcjE%3D), or it's a variation of something that already exists, with a new face. It's the "do as I say, but don't look too closely at what I do". Maybe the most successful example of this practice was [Devin AI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTxoawPHW6A&pp=ygUNZGV2aW4gYWkgc2NhbQ%3D%3D), an emblematic case[^n3] of how to sell smoke. ==Everybody wants to create content, but nobody wants to do the work of making sure the content has value== With that in mind I decided to bring out what I currently think about content creation, about tech coaches and to answer a few questions people ask me. ### A cult of emptiness Stage devs aren't the problem. They may sell themselves for more than they're worth, but in the end they only affect themselves. Many end up disappearing or, eventually, study and do what they always promised. The real problem is a slice of the group that calls itself **tech influencers.** Even though I don't like the term "influencer", I admit I became one without noticing, only to now watch from the inside and ask myself where this is going to end. Most of today's "influencers" have as their idea of content something that is for engagement only, not for teaching. Instead of bringing deep debates or useful ideas, the focus is on little dances, catchphrases and narcissism.[^n2] All of this generates an entertainment bubble, because it's funny, it's engaging, but the ones who stand out aren't the ones with something to teach, they're the ones who know how to entertain or grab attention. ==And creating content is hard work, you have to choose: either you entertain, or you teach. You can't do both **really well** at the same time.== This would be harmless if it had no practical consequences. The audience consumes this shallow content, takes it as absolute truth and repeats it without thinking. I have interviewed people who found out during the interview that React wasn't "The JavaScript". This gets to the level of thinking "Facebook is the internet". I have lost count of how many times I have seen posts that need correcting across several networks, from absurd comparisons between PHP and Node to incorrect news about JavaScript proposals that were never even implemented. The worst part isn't the mistake itself, after all, we're here to learn, it's the lack of commitment to check whether the sources are real before publishing information. And, on the other side, the lack of critical thinking to know that it made no sense... And if there is something that makes me furious, it's someone teaching something wrong as if it were true. ### But why so shallow? The problem doesn't stop at the influencers, they are the consequence of a market that prefers delivery at any cost over stopping and thinking about what you are actually doing. That produces an industry that wants everything fast, simple and practical. Everybody wants to create content, but nobody wants to do the work of making sure the content has value. And the more people get rich and famous with superficial content, the more shallow content gets made, snowballing until you get gems like this one: > React: 761 issues, VSCode: 5000+ issues \[...\] > Your tools aren't perfect, yet they still give millions of people what they need. > Stop worrying about small bugs and interface problems. Focus on your core functionality. Where the message is clearly: it doesn't matter to build something good, what matters is shipping **anything**. That mentality is reflected in today's market. The people graduating now, or in the first years of their career, simply has no desire to go deep into almost anything. As an interviewer, I saw it up close: simple projects, shallow knowledge, devs who knew how to code, but didn't understand how the code ran. "How does it work?" Doesn't matter. ### My own future in all this That made me question the future of what I create here. It's no secret that I don't like social media, I'm barely active on it and I don't know how to create "engaging" content. My few posts that make noise are exceptions, but I also don't want to be part of the cult of shallow content. I want to offer something of value, deep, that teaches, exactly the reason I created this newsletter. Every piece of content I make and will make follows that principle: something well researched, well grounded, the way I like to learn and to teach. I want every article/newsletter/video to be something you see and think: "This was worth my time". I hope that, little by little, more people join this path and break away from the empty content show, bringing real discussion and learning. A lot of people stopped following me in recent months, including here on the newsletter. Why? I don't know. Maybe my content isn't "sexy" or eye-catching enough for the algorithm, maybe I'm too blunt (you [can actually help me by answering here](https://forms.gle/yrgiKweb2PLRTqW78)). But the point is that I don't intend to change just to please. The [main reason](/backlog-0/) for writing all this was always to share ideas and discuss things that really matter, and whoever stays understands that purpose. Creating real content is hard work. It takes time (a lot of time), research and dedication, very different from quick posts like "five secrets to being a ninja dev". I want something that has impact and actually teaches. And even if it doesn't reach that many people, it was already worth it, because I learned in the process. So, if you're here, reading this far, it's because you value the same thing. Thank you. It's for you that I keep writing. #### **Questions people ask me and answers nobody wants to hear** Now is the moment where I answer a bunch of questions a lot of people have sent me over time but that I never ended up answering because I forgot or because I didn't want to answer out of fear of some kind of cancellation, so here goes: **Why don't you post on social media anymore?** _I **hate** having to think of something new every day, you don't always have inspiration to create something, you don't always feel like creating something. But for social media it's always frequency that matters, and I'm not consistent, so social media doesn't like me either. On top of that I produce the content by myself, and I also have a job, so there isn't much time to create something with quality, and if it isn't going to have quality I'd rather not create it._ **What's your opinion on** [**_solopreneurs_**](https://canaltech.com.br/empreendedorismo/o-que-e-solopreneur-191530/) **and that whole success coach thing?** _A lot of it is right here in the newsletter, but in general, whenever I see a "founder" posting something boosting their own company or whenever I see "disruptive", "mindset shift" or variations of that, I unfollow, and sometimes I even block the person. So far there have been few exceptions of people I really wanted to follow who are entrepreneurs, one of them is Zeno Rocha, because I believe he's one of the few who really deliver real value in their products, since the very beginning, and his content isn't just inspirational, it's educational most of the time._ **Is AI going to steal my job?** _If you think AI is going to steal your job in the next 10 years, then it probably will. It's what I always say, if you behave like an AI, you'll be treated like an AI. Today anything with "AI" in the name already gives me a certain disgust, I don't use copilot anymore and I avoid as much as possible any kind of code written completely by AI. They're great tools for review, rubber ducking, but not for thinking for you. **ALWAYS CHECK YOUR SOURCES**_ **What do you plan to do with your content?** _Honestly, I have thought about stopping multiple times. But I think that isn't fair to me, because I really like writing and teaching (and, even more, learning), so I don't want to stop either. I'll probably scale back a bit now with projects like_ [_Formação TS_](https://formacaots.com.br) _in focus so I can finish it once and for all and focus on building things, showing how I'm doing it in the process, maybe on streams. Even though I don't like the_ [_solopreneur_](https://canaltech.com.br/empreendedorismo/o-que-e-solopreneur-191530/) _culture, I really admire indie hackers, because they go through a lot._ _Anyway, I don't know, send me a suggestion by email or on social media if you have any ideas!_ **Do you see a future in today's content?** _Yes, the scene out there today has some very good people. Many who know how to handle social media, who were born in it, but at the same time are also very smart and know how to teach, the best of all worlds. But the number of people who take the easy route drags everything down. If we keep giving a stage to the ones making shallow content, the tendency is that more shallow content shows up._ **Do you think today's devs are fixable?** _I don't think people themselves are broken. I think a pandemic and a series of problems helped make the current bubble what it is. But as long as shallow content and lack of knowledge are the norm, I don't have to think anything, because the market will take care of not letting the people that doesn't care make progress._ Thank you very much, don't forget to comment on my social media if you liked it and I'll see you in the next backlog! [^n1]: A lot of this "glamour" of the dev world comes from the "my routine working at \" people, selling a dream that isn't real. [^n2]: Of course, it isn't everybody, there are excellent influencers who manage to teach something good and engage people, but they're rare. [^n3]: Which made a comeback recently, apparently redeemed, but I doubt it very much, even if tools like [DeepWiki](https://deepwiki.com/) are relatively good to use