Why Personal Websites Matter Even More in the AI Era
Standard answers are becoming cheaper, while personal experience may become more valuable.
AI has hit too hard. Today I saw Tencent’s ami product again, and for a moment I just froze. I could not say a single word for quite a while.
After calming down for half an hour, I thought of the Industrial Revolution. I thought of the Information Revolution. They changed industries, formats, and tools, but the deepest logic underneath business never really moved.
History keeps proving one thing again and again: scarce things always rise in value. It is just that the definition of “scarce” keeps changing.
- In the agricultural age, force was scarce. Whoever had the bigger fist took the land. Landlords and warriors stood at the top of the food chain.
- In the industrial age, capital and machines were scarce. Whoever owned the factory had the say. Capitalists stepped onto the stage.
- In the information age, attention and traffic were scarce. Whoever could reach users made money. Top influencers and platforms became kings.
- And in the AI era, what becomes scarce is taste and judgment: the “golden finger” built from intuition, experience, and aesthetics. It is rare, and it is expensive.
The smaller the information gap becomes, and the larger the shared information base becomes, the clearer one fact is: standard answers are depreciating, while personal experience will not disappear. It may become even more expensive.
Information bases solve known problems. Personal experience deals with the unknown, the ambiguous, and the parts that can only be learned through trial and error. A personal website should no longer be just a provider of information. It should become a place where viewpoints collide.