# Backlog #5 - The Great Dev Bubble Show This is the most honest backlog I've ever posted. Here you'll get straight answers to things people ask me, and an authentic look at my own view of the dev bubble. - URL: https://blog.lsantos.dev/en/backlog-5-the-great-dev-bubble-show/ - Published: 2025-01-09 - Updated: 2026-07-16 - Section: opinion - Tags: backlog-newsletter, opinion, career - Language: en - Author: Lucas Santos --- Today marks the first Backlog of 2025, and we're starting strong. This is going to be the most honest one I've ever written. I'm going to talk about a bunch of topics people always ask me about, and fair warning: **there's no filter here**, everything in this one is going to be authentic. The motivation came last night. This Backlog was supposed to be about something else (something history related, which I'll save for next time), but before going to bed I made the biggest mistake: _I opened LinkedIn_. What I saw there left me with a mix of feelings I need to get off my chest here, since a lot of people ask me about this anyway. So I don't cut the topic off halfway through, let's get the word from our friends at Remessa ❤️ out of the way first. And remember: everything here is **my opinion**. ## A bit of context If you follow me, you know one of the things I hate most is seeing posts from people posing as coaches, selling what they don't practice, and churning out shallow content just for likes and engagement (mostly that last one). From 2015 to 2020 the scene was calmer, but these characters always existed. I split this crowd into three categories: - **The Entrepreneur Guru:** Thinks he has all the answers and promises to "revolutionize humanity," but never delivers anything beyond a repainted variation of a product that already exists. - **The Stage Dev:** Talks about how to build the perfect application based on his two whole years of experience at a garage startup with ten customers. - **The Parrot Influencer:** Teaches, between one dance video and the next, that `parseInt` is "the best solution in JavaScript" ([no](https://x.com/_StaticVoid/status/1510709606569414663) [it isn't](https://x.com/_StaticVoid/status/1488589887146274819)) without checking a single source, proving that badly done basics go viral faster than useful content. They're all doing the same thing, just in different flavors. The coach sells you the idea that "a rocket doesn't have reverse gear," building "his product" at any cost. The stage dev exaggerates his wins to look good.A lot of this "glamour" around the dev world comes from the "my routine working at \" crowd, selling a dream that isn't real. The cycle is simple: you build "hype" 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 [exists](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) [assed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TitZV6k8zfA&pp=ygUObWtiZCByYWJiaXQgcjE%3D), or it's just a reskin of something that already exists with a new face slapped on it. It's "do as I say, don't look too closely at what I do." Maybe the most successful example of this practice was [](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNmgmwEtoWE&t=2s&pp=ygUNZGV2aW4gYWkgc2NhbQ%3D%3D)[Devin AI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTxoawPHW6A&pp=ygUNZGV2aW4gYWkgc2NhbQ%3D%3D), a textbook case (that made a comeback recently, apparently redeemed) of how to sell smoke and mirrors. > [!QUOTE] > Everyone wants to create content, but nobody wants to do the work of making sure that content has any value With that in mind, I decided to bring up what I think about content creation these days, about tech coaches, and answer some questions people keep asking me. ### A cult of emptiness The stage dev isn't the problem. He might oversell himself, but in the end he only hurts himself. A lot of them eventually disappear, or eventually actually study and do what they always promised. The real problem is a slice of the crowd that calls itself **tech influencers.** Even though I don't like the term "influencer," I'll admit I became one without noticing, only to now watch it from the inside and ask myself where this is all headed. Most "influencers" today build their content around engagement alone, not teaching. Instead of bringing deep debates or useful ideas to the table, the focus is on dance videos, catchphrases, and narcissism.Sure, not everyone's like this, there are excellent influencers out there who manage to teach something good and still engage people, but they're rare. All of this creates an entertainment bubble, because it's cute, it's engaging, but who stands out isn't the person with something to teach, it's whoever knows how to entertain or grab attention. > [!QUOTE] > 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've interviewed people who found out during the interview that React isn't "The JavaScript." It gets to the level of people thinking "Facebook is the internet." I've lost count of how many times I've seen posts that need correcting across every network, from absurd comparisons between PHP and Node to wrong claims about JavaScript proposals that were never even implemented. The worst part isn't the mistake itself, after all, we're all here to learn, it's the lack of commitment to checking whether sources are real before posting something as fact. And on the other side, the lack of critical thinking to realize that it didn't make any sense... And if there's one thing that pisses me off, it's someone teaching something wrong like it's the truth. ### But why so shallow? The problem doesn't stop at influencers, they're the consequence of a market that prefers shipping at any cost over stopping to think about what you're actually doing. That creates an industry that wants everything fast, simple, and easy. Everyone wants to create content, but nobody wants to do the work of making sure that content has any value. And the more people get rich and famous off shallow content, the more shallow content gets made, snowballing until you end up with gems like this one: > React: 761 issues, VSCode: 5000+ issues \[...\] > Your tools aren't perfect, and 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 crystal clear: it doesn't matter if you build something good, what matters is shipping **anything at all**. That mentality reflects the current market. The people graduating now, or in the first few years of their career, simply don't have the drive to go deep into almost anything. As an interviewer, I've seen this up close: simple projects, shallow knowledge, devs who knew how to code but didn't understand how the code actually ran. "How does it work?" Doesn't matter. ### Where I fit into all this This 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. The few posts of mine 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 valuable, deep, that actually teaches, which is exactly why I created this newsletter. Every piece of content I make, and will keep making, follows this principle: something well researched, well grounded, the way I like to learn and teach. I want every article, newsletter, or video to be something you look at and think "that 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 discussions and real learning instead. A lot of people have unfollowed me in the past few 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 (actually, [you can help me out by answering here](https://forms.gle/yrgiKweb2PLRTqW78)). But the point is I don't plan on changing just to please people. The [main reason](/backlog-0/) I've always written all this has been to share ideas and discuss things that actually matter, and whoever stays around gets that. Creating real content takes work. It demands time (a lot of it), research, and dedication, nothing like those quick posts along the lines of "five secrets to becoming a ninja dev." I want something that has impact and actually teaches. And even if it doesn't reach that many people, it's already been worth it, because I learned something in the process. So if you're here, reading this far, it's because you value the same thing. Thank you. You're who I keep writing for. #### **Questions people ask me, and answers nobody wants to hear** Now's the moment where I answer a bunch of questions that people have been sending me for a while, but I never got around to answering, either because I forgot or because I was scared of getting canceled for it. So here goes: **Why don't you post more on social media?** _I **hate** having to come up with something new every single day, you don't always have the inspiration to create something, you don't always feel like creating something. But on social media, frequency is always what matters, and I'm not consistent, so social media doesn't like me back either. On top of that, I make all this content by myself, and I also have a job, so there's not much time left to create anything with quality, and if it's not going to have quality, I'd rather not make it at all._ **_What's your take on_** [](https://canaltech.com.br/empreendedorismo/o-que-e-solopreneur-191530/)[**_solopreneurs_**](https://canaltech.com.br/empreendedorismo/o-que-e-solopreneur-191530/) **_and this whole success coach crowd?_** _A lot of my take on that is already in this newsletter, but in general, whenever I see a "founder" posting something to hype up their own company, or whenever I see "disruptive," "mindset shift," or some variation of that, I unfollow, and sometimes I even block the person. So far there have been a few exceptions, entrepreneurs I actually wanted to keep following, one of them is Zeno Rocha, because I believe he's one of the few who actually deliver real value in their products, from 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's going to steal your job in the next 10 years, then it probably will. It's what I always say, if you act like an AI, you're going to get treated like one. These days anything with "AI" in the name already gives me a bit of an ick, I don't use Copilot anymore and I avoid any code written entirely by AI as much as I can. They're great tools for review, for rubber ducking, but not for thinking for you. **ALWAYS CHECK YOUR SOURCES**_ **What do you plan on doing with your content?** _Honestly, I've thought about quitting more than once. But I don't think that's fair to myself, because I really love 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) _as the priority, so I can actually finish it once and for all and focus on building things, showing how I'm doing it along the way, maybe even in some livestreams. As much as I'm not a fan of_ [_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 content the way it is today?** _Yes, there are a lot of genuinely good people out there right now. Plenty of them know how to work social media, grew up on it, but at the same time are also really smart and know how to teach, the best of both worlds. But the sheer number of people who take the easy path drags everything down. If we keep giving a stage to people who make shallow content, the trend is that more shallow content shows up._ **Do you think today's devs can be fixed?** _I don't think people are broken. I think a pandemic and a bunch of other problems helped shape the current bubble into what it is. But as long as shallow content and lack of knowledge are the norm, I don't have to think anything about it, because the market's going to take care of not letting people who don't care about it move forward._ Thanks a lot, don't forget to leave a comment on my social media if you liked it, and I'll see you in the next backlog!